


Twisted Creatures

by Aisalynn



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Also in keeping with canon, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Deal with a Devil, M/M, Mostly canon Complaint, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, just tweaked a little, monster Silver
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:47:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisalynn/pseuds/Aisalynn
Summary: As he rolled to his back and squinted up against the sun, he had a vague memory of a cold, slick hand grasping his, of cool lips against his own. When he looked blearily around his eyes caught on a head of dark, wet curls, blue eyes and a wide smile with sharp, jagged teeth, dark as blood.Flint blinked, and let himself pass out.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver, Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton, Madi/John Silver (Black Sails), Miranda Barlow/Captain Flint | James McGraw
Comments: 59
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

Around Flint the crew was dying. 

Thrown violently from the ship and into the sea, blasted with cannons until they were nothing but a spray of blood and bone into the water. The masts of the _Walrus_ groaned as they careened off the side of the ship, felled like the trees they had been cut from. Flint squinted through blurred eyes at the chaos around him as he struggled to stay afloat, and the sense of failure he felt weighed down his limbs as much as the weakness from the bullet wound in his shoulder. 

He took a breath, and the water pulled him under. 

It was impossible to resist, now, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. No _Urca_ gold, no captaincy, no means to keep the island England so desired from it’s cruel hands and avenge what had been done to Thomas. To Miranda. 

The thought of her stung, and as he sank further into the water it was his one regret. He imagined her waiting—every night, waiting. There would be no one alive to pass on word of his death, and she would wait until enough time passed for her to realize he was never returning. An almost second-time widow, mourning another lover, this time lost at sea. 

The idea was enough to make him fight, but too late—his lungs burned from the lack of oxygen, and when he looked up, arms reaching for the surface his hands cut through a trail of his own blood, floating above him. His vision darkened as he struggled to pull himself through the water, and his mouth opened involuntarily with a gasp, salt filling his mouth and lungs. 

It seemed like just a moment later that he was hacking and spitting out water onto the sand below him. When his lungs were clear he took a deep, shuddering breath. His shoulder trembled from holding up his weight and he collapsed into the sand, unable to hold himself up any longer. As he rolled to his back and squinted up against the sun, he had a vague memory of a cold, slick hand grasping his, of cool lips against his own. When he looked blearily around his eyes caught on a head of dark, wet curls, blue eyes and a wide smile with sharp, jagged teeth, dark as blood. 

Flint blinked, and let himself pass out. 

When he woke up again the first thing he saw was Silver. He smiled at Flint in that annoying, ingratiating way he did, and it was a set of perfectly white teeth that peeked through his lips. Dufresne, the mutinous worm, was on his other side and was just as infuriating and normal as before, so Flint brushed aside the image as a delirium brought on by nearly drowning, and turned his focus to the gold that littered the sand, to the warship that floated within reach, promising either their death or salvation. 

It was hard to shake off the unease he felt when Silver volunteered to help him take the Man of War, though. He'd lingered behind Flint’s back the entire time they had been ashore, a mere foot behind him as they walked back to the beach with the men, peering over Flint’s shoulder as he addressed them and made his case. Flint's skin prickled at his constant presence, and when Silver lifted his lips in a wordless smile he fought the urge to shudder, imagining them parting to reveal a set of black, monstrous teeth. 

Foolish. 

Flint deliberately turned his back to him and stalked bootless into the waves. Maybe Silver was right about his wounded shoulder being too much to swim with—he was clearly mad from blood loss—but it was too late to turn back now. 

Perhaps it was the unease still lingering in his veins that caused him to snap, to grab Silver and press the blade to his throat once they were outside of the crew’s cabin, or maybe it was just Silver’s utter fucking _stupidity_ , but here they were—Silver with the whistle he endangered their entire endeavor to get, and Flint with the knife to his throat. 

His hand trembled with the effort to hold the blade back, to not press forward and put to rest the instinct writhing under his skin that told him that Silver was _dangerous, dangerous._ So much more so than what he appeared to be that night on the wrecks. 

But Silver was talking. 

“Might you consider for a fucking moment that your distrust of me is completely unwarranted?”

Silver’s brows were furrowed, his eyes locking onto Flint’s in a pantomime of sincerity. “I warned you about Billy,” he pressed, and the rhythm of his words seemed to wrap around Flint, sinking through the pores of his skin and soothing the hot anger there. “Was I right? I found you over Mr. Gates body, and did I do anything but defend you? When you were sinking to the bottom of the sea, who do you imagine it was who dragged you onto that beach?” 

It was only years of training and experience that kept his hand around the blade as his muscles went lax with shock. Fear flashed up his spine like a spray of cold water. 

The words brought back the image: blue eyes through a curtain of wild curls, and a sharp smile, jagged like a tear across his face. The skin on Silver’s neck where his knuckles brushed against was warm and smooth, but for some reason Flint expected it to be rough against his own. 

_Dangerous,_ his mind whispered again. 

“Brace yourself,” Silver told him, “but I’m the only person within a hundred miles of here who doesn’t want to see you dead.”

The words did not ease Flint’s mind. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Flint had barely gotten a look at the thief on his ship before the man threw himself overboard. His only thought besides the seething anger and desire to go after him _now_ , despite what the men would think, was that he was a very strong swimmer for someone so abysmal at diving. That night on the wrecks was almost like a hunt from some kind of Greek myth—the rough landscape lit only by the stars, the man they searched for flickering in and out of that light as he ducked through the cliffs and stones that made up the terrain. When Flint finally got his hands on him, the dim light from the fire made by the wretches who took shelter there flickered across his face, casting it in shadow as often as it revealed his smirking mouth and sharp gaze. 

Could he sense that something was off about him then? Did Flint ignore it in favor of finally getting his hands on the information that would see to it that years of hard work and careful planning were not spent in vain? 

“We might be friends by then.” His voice had been light, his tone persuasive and Flint had laughed, amused by this thief’s audacity, but not concerned by it. 

He was concerned now. 

They were alone on the deck of their stolen ship, no longer men awaiting the noose, but pariahs, with only each other to accept their company. The sound of Dufresne’s steps had just faded into the night when Silver spoke up. His voice was smooth and light, words measured, and he circled slowly around Flint until he was standing beside him, shoulders almost brushing Flint's as he looked out in the opposite direction.

“I don’t believe you did any of this for a pardon, or a passage to Nassau,” Silver murmured, and this time Flint could feel it, feel the way the words drew out the thoughts in his head, pulling them to the front of his mind as if they had been there all along. “I think you intend to reclaim your captaincy. I think you intend to take control of this ship.”

Flint had seen fear on Silver’s face. He had seen uncertainty, anxiety, concern—he had seen it all flash across the man’s facial expression as easy as they did any man’s, but he never heard it in his voice. 

“And then I think you intend to return to that beach—” Silver’s voice had never been anything confident, persuasive even. Even when he was standing over a raw pig and swearing it was cooked even though he had no idea what he was doing. “—armed to the _teeth_ , and seize every last piece of gold off of it.”

Maybe Silver, whatever he was, didn’t feel fear. Maybe he didn’t, but Flint did. You didn’t rise as the son of a nameless carpenter to the level of Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, didn’t become the most notorious pirate in the New World without learning fear. Without learning how to deal with it. 

So Flint ignored the ripple of unease that threatened to take over his muscles as Silver leaned in close, and saw this for what it really was.

An opportunity. 

“And I think you are going to need my help to do it.” Silver smiled at him, and the light from the torches around the ship glinted against his perfectly straight, white teeth. “Tell me I’m wrong.” 

  
  


* * *

  
  


_Thump thump._

Flint watched as Silver stomped his foot on the floor of the galley twice in rapid succession. The crew barely glanced Silver’s way, only looking up to grin viciously when his announcement earned him a swift fist to the gut. 

_Thump thump._

When he wasn't volunteering to be pummeled by members of the crew or pulling secrets from Randall, Silver was with Flint. 

Flint had managed to tamp down the unease he felt when he was near. He no longer had to fight the urge to flinch back when Silver scooted a bucket closer to Flint so he could sit in front of him, or braced his forearms on the railing of the ship inches from Flint's so he could lean close as he spoke. Silver would pitch his voice low, keep his tone soothing as he invited Flint to conspire with him, but the words no longer wrapped around Flint’s thoughts as they had before. 

The fear was nearly gone, but what was remained was a prickling sensation on the back of his neck and down his spine whenever Silver drew near. It was as if, no matter what Flint tried to rationalize in his mind, his body instinctively knew that there was something strange, something... _other_ about him. 

_Thump thump._

Silver's left eye was swollen shut, and the edge of his jaw was darkened by a developing bruise. His voice, however, didn't waver as it rang through the room. 

"First item!"

_Thump thump._

Dufresne was a lettered man, an intelligent man, and before he got it into his head that he could pose as the captain of _his_ ship, Flint had had respect for him. But his knowledge was limited to what he could find in his books, and unlike Flint, he never made a study of human behavior. 

He did not know then, the lengths a desperate man could go to. 

The _Urca_ gold, the cumulation of everything he had worked for the past decade, was sitting on a beach nearly defenseless behind them. And Dufresne thought he could steal it from him. 

Flint was a desperate man. 

It was just a small conversation. A few well placed words in the right sort of tone, with the right sort of body language and the idea—and the suspicion—was planted. Manipulation was not a foreign tool for Flint, but if he thought of Silver as he made sure to put just the _right_ inflection on his words as he talked, no one would know but him. 

He knew it worked when he saw Dufresne with De Groot, the two of them talking low, brows drawn over the eyes. 

Flint resisted the urge to look for Silver, to meet his eyes in triumph.

_Thump thump._

This time, more of the men looked up as Silver’s foot slammed against the boards, a few in distaste, most in anticipation. Flint made careful note of the men who deliberately kept their heads down, shoulders hunched as they pretended to focus on their food, and wasn’t surprised when one of them stood up and delivered a blow to Silver’s face.

When the fight broke out amongst the men Silver looked up and caught Flint’s eye, a satisfied smile forming around a mouthful of blood. 

_Thump thump._

Flint lingered on the outside of the argument between the would-be captain and ship's master. Like raising the black, he needed to wait for just the right moment. Too soon and it might push Dufresne into action, too late and it wouldn't matter, they'd be finished. 

"No one is in fucking charge here!"

_There._

Three steps and he was in earshot. "You have to sink her." Experience gave the words the weight they needed, and they were the truth. No one would fear that flag if word got out. Dufresne had seen to that, just as Flint had hoped he would. "You cannot just escape, you have to sink that ship." 

From the corner of his eye he could see the men nearest them watching the exchange, but Flint kept his eyes locked on Dufresne. He never wavered in his certainty as he watched Dufresne's confidence crumble further, his mouth going slack with indecision. 

"Cut us loose. Get us underway."

The order was immediately repeated and Flint turned his back on Dufresne, dismissing him. Dufresne was done. All confidence in the man as captain trampled by the panic that still reigned on the ship. 

"Gun crews at the ready." 

There was no hesitation in the words when he gave the order, no breath held as the men paused in surprise. He gave it with authority because the authority was _his._ He took it, and he made damn sure they recognized it. 

The next order was followed without any delay, and as their cannons burst through the hull of their lost prize Flint felt a deep sense of satisfaction seep into his bones. 

A tingle of unease crawled its way up his neck and he looked up at Silver, who had leaned forward against the rail in excitement. The grin that stretched across his face mirrored that satisfaction, but he wasn't watching as debris from the ship blasted into the air. His gaze was locked, unquestionably, on Flint. 

_What do they fear then?_

Flint's steps were smooth and even as he crossed the deck. He felt the heavy gaze of the crew on his back, took note of their silence as he made his way through them. Slumped on the ground or against the inside of the deck rail were the wounded and the dead, but Flint didn't stop to see which was which. 

The men in these waters had to come to terms with their own mortality very quickly. They did not fear ships. They did not fear guns, nor swords. They feared something else—the whispers carried on the wind that spoke of something unnatural. 

The screams from the other ship as it sank still filled the air around them. Without being told, his crew fired another round at the launches being hastily lowered into the water, leaving no chance of rescue or salvation. 

They feared something darker. Something wilder. 

It was with a steady gate that he climbed the stairs to the quarterdeck and took his customary position, observing the crew as captain of the ship once again. 

Something monstrous. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


That evening, Silver knocked on the door of his cabin. He didn't wait for Flint to answer, pushing it open before he even finished the last knock, slipping easily in and shutting the door quietly behind him. 

Flint scowled up at him from the desk. "What are you doing here?" 

"Me?" Silver raised his eyebrows, his tone an affectation of surprise. "Why, I am here to congratulate you on gaining your captaincy back again, of course. It was impressively done." 

As he spoke walked around the desk to the bookshelf, fingers trailing along the leather spines. 

"The way you maneuvered Dufresne into a situation that proved him a poor choice of captain, and at the same time frightening the men into the realization that you were the _only_ choice, mere days after you were deposed." The smile he gave Flint over his shoulder had the same air of satisfaction as the one Flint had seen levelled at him earlier. "Masterful, some might stay," Silver finished. 

"Hm," was all Flint managed, but his reticence didn't seem to dim Silver's smile in the slightest. He walked past the bookshelf to stand in front of the windows and Flint turned in his chair, unwilling to show him his back. The way Silver moved was too smooth, too fluid, like he was cutting through water. "Or maybe you've come to talk me into something again." 

"Of course not, Captain." The words were mild but this time Silver's smile was sharp, and though he referred to him by title, all subservience had been stripped from his tone. "We both know that particular trick hasn't worked on you for some time now." 

Flint's stomach clenched at the words and a shiver ran over his skin. So he hadn't been imagining it. Silver watched his reaction with heavy-lidded eyes from his spot in front of the window. The moonlight streaming through them added an unnatural sheen to his skin, and it made Flint think of a shark, breaching the water in the night.

"What are you?" he rasped.

Silver tilted his head, amused. "That's a rather rude question, don't you think?" Slowly, he walked back around the desk again, circling Flint. "Have I not been your ally?" He was facing Flint from across the desk now, gaze flickering pointedly to the shoulder with the bullet wound. "Your _savior?"_

Irritation tamped down on his fear at the reminder. "So you're my own personal Palaemon, is that it?" he asked cynically. 

Silver clucked his tongue. "Nothing so benign, I assure you." He leaned forward and braced both arms against the desk. The position made it so he was looming over Flint. "But more important than what I am, is what _you_ are." 

Flint didn't cower as Silver pressed forward. "And what am I?" 

"You, my dear Captain, are a thief." 

Flint shook his head. "I'm a _pirate_ ," he corrected. "Not a thief. We draw that distinction here." 

"That may be so," Silver was quick to reply. "But you are a thief all the same. You breached a contract, took what isn't yours." 

"Look," Flint growled, standing up. Now he was really irritated. Who was _Silver_ to admonish him about an extra share of the _Urca_ gold? Whatever he was, he certainly couldn't throw stones on that subject. "If you are referring to the Articles—"

Silver's chuckle stopped him mid sentence. "Oh, no. Not that. You've stolen something far more serious than a little gold from your men, haven't you, Captain _Flint?_ "

Flint dropped heavily back into his chair, real fear settling like ice in his stomach. 

"That's right." Silver straightened. The look he gave Flint was still amused, but also dangerous. _Hungry._

"That name did not belong to you. It was the sea's and yet you took it. You stole it from her and then you used it to wreak unfathomable horrors upon her waters for ten years." He took a step to the left, circling Flint— _hunting_ him—again. "You owe a debt, Captain. And I've been sent to collect." 

Panic tightened his throat. “How?”

“The only way the debt can be repaid—” as Silver walked slowly around the desk it was as if the veneer of humanity was being washed away. The eyes locked on Flint were too blue, too bright in the dark room, his skin too smooth, teeth too sharp. “—is with your end.”

Flint could feel his pulse pound in his chest and throat as Silver approached his chair. His mind raced. He didn’t know what Silver was, so he didn’t know if he could fight him, if he could win. And anyway he was trapped—Silver was already in the upper position with Flint backed against the chair. There had to be some way out of this. He wasn’t going to survive a bullet to the shoulder, survive drowning, just to be killed now in his own cabin. He wasn’t— 

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said aloud. 

Silver paused, one eyebrow rising in curiosity. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” Flint said again. “If you were sent here to kill me, then why drag me out of the water? Why help me take this ship? Why steal the page from the logbook at all?”

Silver shrugged one shoulder. “I was telling you the truth before. I don’t care much for the sea, and once I have finished here I will have to return to it. Besides, you bring such _chaos_ with you wherever you go, such _havoc._ ” His eyes went half-lidded at the word, head tilting back as he stared at a point above Flint, an expression of bliss on his face. "I can't help but be drawn to it. Besides," his attention snapped back down to Flint "there'll be consequences if I don't return eventually and I knew my time on this ship was limited once you started to get suspicious. So. Here we are."

Silver took another step, now just an arm's reach away from him. 

"Wait." Flint threw up a hand between them, and surprisingly, Silver stopped. Flint's mind was caught on an idea, and he just had to hope that everything he knew about Silver wasn't just an act to put him in a better position to hunt him. "I have a proposal." 

He was gratified to see Silver rock back slightly, a flicker of interest in his expression. "Oh? What is it?" 

Flint gestured to the chair across the desk. Silver shot him an amused smile before complying, slinking around the desk to slump lazily in the chair. He leaned back against one of the armrests and waved one hand at Flint to continue. "I'm listening." 

Now that there was some space between them, Flint felt more clear headed, the idea panic had sparked developing into a plan. "I propose a separate contract: one between you and me." 

There was definite interest in Silver's expression now. "And what would this contract entail?" 

"You get to stay on this ship as a member of my crew and you don't have to return to the sea for a long time. You get to… _enjoy_ all the chaos and havoc that this kind of life brings." 

"And in return?" 

Flint hesitated, staring at the map he'd been studying before Silver came in. The next part only Miranda knew. Even Gates, who had been his quartermaster and friend for years, only knew some of it at the end, and that information was a contributing factor to what had gone wrong between them. But his mind lingered over the way Silver had won over the crew these last few days, remembered him smiling up at Flint in Eleanor's office convincing everyone in it to give him a share of the gold instead of simply torturing the information out of him. 

Flint looked up. "For the last ten years I have had one goal. You say I have wreaked horrors upon these waters and I cannot deny it, but it has all been in pursuit of that goal." 

Silver sat up. "And what goal is that?" 

Forgetting that he meant to keep space between them, Flint leaned forward, bracing himself on the desk. "I intend to deal England a blow they cannot easily recover from," he all but snarled. "I will wrench Nassau, and with it Providence Island, out of their grasp completely, and make sure they are never able to reclaim it again." 

Silver leaned back, lips pursing as he whistled. "That's a lofty goal." 

"Not as much as you think," Flint argued. "With the _Urca_ gold and the fort we will have the means to defend ourselves. The means to support ourselves. The pirates in Nassau already out number everyone else on the island two to one, and once we start working the land instead of seeking prize ships we are mere years from sustainability." 

"Years," Silver repeated thoughtfully. "An insult this big to Spain and England would result in reprisals from both." 

"It would," Flint confirmed. "Which is why the fort and the money for arms is essential." 

"You are courting a war." 

"One we will win." 

Sharp eyes caught his. "You don't know that for sure. Still—" Silver continued before Flint could speak "It would certainly result in years of entertainment for me. But what do you want from me? I'd make a poor farmer, and an even poorer soldier." 

"I have seen you with the men," Flint told him. "Your foolish little announcements shouldn't have worked, and yet almost all of them listen to you already. I cannot afford another mutiny, not when we are this close. I intend for you to use your… _skills_ to aid me in my goal whenever necessary. To keep the crew under control and of the mind that what I am doing is in their best interest." 

Silver looked thoughtful again. "It's not perfect," he warned him. "It stopped working on you, after all. And when working with a crowd it takes much longer to take effect. I have to build it up, as you have seen." 

"All the same," Flint's voice was firm. "That is what I want in return." 

"Alright." Silver braced himself on his knees. "But there is still one matter to settle. I told you there would be consequences if I don't complete my task. I have no intentions of facing those consequences." 

Flint took a deep breath. "You won't have to. When Nassau is secure— _and_ prosperous—you can do what you were sent here to do." 

Real surprise flash over Silver's face. "You would give yourself up willingly?" 

Flint thought of Miranda and a deep, hollow ache clawed at his chest at the idea of leaving her alone. She would hate him for this, if she found out, but with Nassau secure she would be safe, and able to live the life that she wanted. Besides, the goal he sought was years away, which would give him time to come up with a way to get himself out of it. And if he couldn't… Well, Miranda hated it on Providence Island, they both knew that, even if they didn't talk about it. She stayed for his sake, trapped in misery for love of him. If he was gone... maybe she would finally be able to leave. She could find somewhere else to live her own life. 

Flint met the too bright eyes staring intensely at him from across the desk. He nodded. "Yes. I would." 

Silver's smile as he studied Flint was the same as it had been when he watched him take back his captaincy: impressed and satisfied. "Well then," Silver stood up. "It seems like we can come to an agreement." 

Flint stood up as well, walking around the desk and holding his hand out for Silver to take. 

Silver shook his head. "Oh no, Captain. A contract like this needs something more substantial than a handshake to seal the deal." 

Flint's brow furrowed in confusion. He turned to the desk, reaching for some paper. "I suppose we could write it all—"

A quick hand reached up, wrapped around his chin and pulled his face down to meet Silver's in a rough kiss. Flint gasped in surprise and Silver used the opportunity to press forward, slipping a slick tongue into his mouth to slide against his own. Mind fuzzy with shock, Flint automatically returned the kiss, until sharp teeth bit into the inside of his bottom lip, breaking the skin. The metallic tang of blood filled his mouth and then Silver took Flint's lip into his own mouth and _sucked._

Flint wrenched himself away from Silver's hand and threw himself backwards, panting as he gaped at the man—no _creature_ —in front of him. 

Eyes never leaving Flint's, Silver smiled, running his tongue along the blood still shining on his bottom lip. 

"We have an accord, Captain," he said softly. He walked to the door. "I should let you get back to planning. We have five million Spanish dollars to secure, after all." 

Flint watched Silver disappear through the door and waited until it was firmly closed before he walked slowly back to his desk. He all but collapsed into his chair, a fine tremor working its way through his limbs. He brought one unsteady hand to his bottom lip and when he pulled it away his fingertips were dark with blood. 

The next day Flint stayed in his cabin as Silver made his daily address on the main deck above. When he slammed his foot twice on the deck, it felt like the entirety of the ship reverberated with the sound as the rest of the crew joined him. 

_Thump thump._

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

_La Galatea._

Flint’s hand paused when he read the title, surprised, though of course he shouldn’t have been. He pulled it from the shelf and flipped through the pages: the Spanish text wasn't a surprise, though the age of the edition was. It was a gift Miranda would be pleased to receive, even if, after their last argument, she wasn’t pleased to see him. 

The first book Flint had ever brought home to Miranda from a prize ship had been _Don Quixote._ It was an English translation and a rather poor print—the binding was cheap and already starting to separate from the salt and moisture in the air, even though it was relatively new. But it was one of her favorites so he took it from the captain’s cabin and presented it to her in their new home with it’s rough wooden table and stained walls.

She’d kissed him with tears in her eyes and placed it alongside the only other book on their bare shelves. He’d stared at them, thinking the dull brown leather looked even cheaper when placed against the finely bound red tome on the shelf. He had wanted to bring a little bit of comfort to Miranda, to take care of her like he'd been asked and instead the sight of them together mocked him for how inadequate to the task he was proving to be. 

Miranda didn’t let him wallow in his self pity for long, though. She wiped at her tears with dainty fingertips and smiled at him, only a little dimmer and slightly less wicked than the ones that would make him flush under his collar back in London. 

“We should get a copy of _The Odyssey_ ," she had suggested. "As much as you quote it, I assume it is one of your favorites and then we would have a collection.”

Now, he turned the pages of Cervantes’ other work and felt that same inadequacy keenly. Not even forty-eight hours ago he sat in this cabin and bartered away his life to a creature Flint could only describe as brought forth from a nightmare.

Would she forgive him if she knew what he had done? This morning, with clear, bright light streaming through the windows it was easy to tell himself that he could have fought, or could have come up with a better, smarter plan. But that night with only faint moonlight and flickering candles keeping darkness at bay, the idea of fighting seemed like tilting at windmills: foolish and futile. 

The wall separating the cabin from the galley shook with the force of the men’s feet as they slammed them hard against the floor, and Flint could hear the faint sounds of Silver’s voice as he began his announcements. 

Flint had learned long ago that he could not do what needed to be done if he allowed himself to wallow in regret. Book in hand, he walked over to the desk. 

_La Galatea_ was about love: two men from vastly different backgrounds and vastly different worldviews, bound to each other both by love of one another and that of a single woman. It was also about the failures of love. The cost of it. The grief of it. 

Flint dipped his pen into the inkwell, and on the first page of the book he wrote out the only apology he could make. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The crew didn't just listen to Silver, they _liked_ him too. In the short journey home the irritated silence that followed his daily announcements had transformed into a cheerful raucous. Laughter and good natured boos filled the galley and even when one of the men took to arguing with Silver another man stepped in between them, calming him down and shooting an assuring look over his shoulder at Silver. 

Flint could almost tell himself as he caught Silver's eye through the chaos that what he felt was the satisfaction of a well formed plan coming to fruition. 

He resisted the urge to raise his hand to his still stinging lip. 

When the launch was made ready for the two of them, Flint made sure to take the back bench, leaving Silver no choice but to take the one in front of him, under Flint's careful gaze the whole way to shore. 

It did not, unfortunately, stop Silver from talking. They had barely taken up the oars and started to row when he flashed a smirking look over his shoulder at Flint. "You know I think this is the first time we have been alone since we have come to our understanding, Captain." 

Flint grunted, attempting to appear unconcerned with anything other than the repetitive motion of the oars dipping in and out of the water. 

"In fact," Silver's own oars moved with an ease that hinted at a strength greater than his lithe form should be capable of. "I am beginning to think you have been avoiding me." 

He was. Even when he had given Silver instructions on what to include in his announcements he had done it with Dufresne and several other members of the crew in the cabin with them. He hadn't been sure if he should be gratified or uneasy about the fact that no one seemed to question why he was giving those instructions to the cook. 

"You didn't try to avoid me when you first became suspicious of my nature," Silver mused aloud, undeterred by Flint's silence. "And you have proved several times since I have known you that you are no coward. So," Silver stopped rowing in order to turn on the bench and face Flint, "it must be the kiss." 

"That was _not_ a kiss," Flint snapped. "It was an assault." 

When Silver cocked his head with a pleased look Flint wanted to bite his own tongue, knowing he had allowed himself to be baited. 

"Fair enough," Silver conceded. "I suppose it is hard to call it a kiss when it was designed to serve another purpose than pleasure, but surely you can't be that squeamish over a little blood. It's traditional when consummating this sort of contract, after all." 

Flint did not let up on his scowl. 

Silver leaned forward on his knees, oars abandoned so he could peer curiously up at Flint's expression. "Or maybe,” he drawled, “your discomfort has more to do with who that book is for, and your commitment to them. Is it the Mrs. Barlow I have heard so much about?”

Annoyance flashed through Flint, and the familiar emotion was a comfort after the unease and fear he had experienced around Silver the last few days. Today Silver seemed less like the predator who had circled him in his cabin, and was once again the impertinent cook, pushing into Flint's space despite every attempt to keep him at bay. 

Silver waited for his reply, tilting his head again and allowing the bright Caribbean sunlight to land on the smooth line of his neck, the dip of his clavicle.

In _The Odyssey_ Circe warns Odysseus about the island of Sirens. The only way to survive, she told him, was to form beeswax into earplugs for his men as they sailed by. Odysseus himself was too curious to block his own ears, so he bound himself to the mast, trusting in the faithfulness of his men to tighten his binds if he was taken by madness. 

It was not a general promise of riches or love that they sang to him. The Sirens called Odysseus by name. They had looked into the heart of him and knew exactly what to say to entice the hero to give up his journey and follow their voices to an island of mouldering bones. 

"Shut up and row," Flint growled. 

Silver shrugged one shoulder and turned around, taking up the oars once again. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Frustration beat in his veins as he rode back to Nassau, and he pushed his horse into a galloping pace to match it. 

It started to go wrong the minute he and Silver made it to shore, with the sight of Hornigold’s flag flying above a tent on the beach. For all Silver’s concerned looks, there was barely concealed excitement in his voice when he pointed it out, and it was half out of irritation that he insisted Silver stay behind with Hornigold. 

"You could use me," Silver had said, referring to Flint's upcoming conversation with Eleanor, but Flint refused. He and Eleanor understood one another. They wanted the same things for Nassau, had worked towards it together for years. He didn't need Silver to whisper in Eleanor's ear and bend her to his will, didn't want him to. The idea of inflicting Silver on Eleanor was repugnant, somehow, and even when it became clear that Flint didn't understand her quite so well as he thought, it didn't push him to reconsider. 

But it Flint left with few options. 

As Flint began to exercise those options, Silver's mood plummeted until it matched Flint's. Every order Flint had given him was met with a dark look or a doubtful tone. That was fine. They had an agreement, but that didn't mean they were partners. He didn't need Silver's understanding as long as he did what he was told.

Flint pushed his horse faster, squinting against the sand it kicked up into the air. He'd had little time before he had to return to the _Walrus_ but he'd wanted to see Miranda. He knew that things could not be put to right between them now—not with his agreement with Silver hanging over Flint's head—but still the desire to go to her, to fold himself into her embrace and press his face into the soft curve of her neck was strong. It had been lingering in his mind since he woke up with a badly bandaged bullet wound on that beach in Florida. 

But she wasn't alone when he arrived at the house. 

Shaky chords of music were heard through the windows, and it had brought his approach to a halt. He'd lingered on the outside of the house, watching her as she patiently corrected the child's fingering on the keys. The youngest child threw herself at Miranda, wrapping her arms around her waist and Miranda laughed, tilting her head back and revealing the long line of her throat. 

The first time Flint had heard her laugh like that had been in one of the Hamilton's carriages. It was heading back to their home instead of an art collection and Miranda was in his lap, fingers pulling the tie free from his hair. His lips were tracing the line of her shoulder when the carriage hit a large hole in the road. The jolt nearly knocked her to the floor of the carriage and it was only his quick reflexes that allowed him to stop it, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back to him. 

Miranda had leaned back in his hold, trusting him to hold her steady, and laughed. 

Now, whenever Captain Flint rode to visit Mrs. Barlow at night Miranda woke up to spies lingering at the edges of the property. She had few friends. Her relationship with such a dark and terrible figure caused the sparse community on New Providence to keep its distance, and they watched her with a wary and suspicious gaze. 

Inside the house, the youngest child shoved her sibling over on the bench, slamming her fingers onto the keys of the instrument with joyful carelessness. Miranda laughed again.

Flint had stepped away from the windows, carefully placing the book in front of her doorway for her to find in the morning. 

There was no place for Captain Flint in that house tonight. 

The pace he pushed his horse to could only be termed as brutal, but when he saw the state of the men on the _Walrus_ he knew had got there at just the right time. The men were gathered in a tense and angry crowd, muttering to one another. 

Silver met him with another dark look. “I told the men what you asked,” he muttered, his tone just bordering on resentful. “They’re not pleased.”

“Good,” was all Flint said, and he took the stairs down to stand among the crew. 

He was not Odysseus. He did not have a crew so faithful he could bind himself mad to the mast and trust they would stop him from seeking his own doom. They did not hoot joyfully when spoke, or stamp their feet against the boards. He did not have their trust, nor their regard. 

He had something better. 

"I know how you must all feel," he began. His voice carried easily through the hush that settled over the men at the sight of him. "How desperate you must be to go home and be embraced by Nassau again. But I am here to tell you, that place no longer exists." 

There was a low murmur of voices, a flicker of the discontent that had been building since Flint sent Silver back without provisions. Flint stoked that flicker into a flame with the breath from his own lungs. He painted a picture of a madman looming over the hostage streets of their home. What good is gold without a home to return it to? If your prosperity would be stripped from you in the attempt?

"Charles Vane and the animals he commands have until sunrise tomorrow to vacate that fort, or so help me God…" 

The murmur died for moment, hushed in anticipation— 

"I will rain holy hell down upon him." 

—and grew into a roar. 

The men raised their fists in the air with their cheers, stomped their feet against the boards of the ship and, more importantly, responded to his orders with eager obedience. They all but ran to their posts, readying the ship to move and take the position Hornigold had given them. He stayed above, orchestrating the move, grim satisfaction beating in his veins as his orders were followed with alacrity. 

As the men worked he could feel Silver's gaze, heavy against his back. He'd glanced briefly at Silver at the end of his address, and was unsurprised to find Silver already watching him. His face had an intense, hungry expression as their eyes caught, and the shadows caused by the flickering light of the torches gave the impression of a dark stain beneath the line of his mouth. 

He knew, as he finally descended the stairs to his cabin, that Silver would not be long behind him. All he had to do was leave the door unlocked and Silver would slip into the room, quick and quiet, like cutting through still water. 

_Come this way_ , the Sirens had whispered to Odysseus when he was strapped to the mast, _stay your ship, so that you can listen to our singing._

Flint walked through the door of his cabin and bolted the door behind him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Silver remained a presence at his back. He lingered behind Flint through every order, every meeting. In the cabin he had taken up a position to Flint's left, lounging carelessly on the window seat behind him, lightly voicing carefully chosen words of reason whenever one of the other men objected to something Flint said. 

Sadly, it didn't work on Hornigold. 

The first time Silver attempted to reason with him the man stared him down with sneer and proceeded to ignore every subsequent comment from Silver with barely concealed disdain. It was disappointing, since he and Flint could barely see eye to eye on best days, but not surprising. There was a reason Gates was always sent to deal with Hornigold when necessary. 

Silver did not, thankfully, try anything when Eleanor came in. He remained silent on his perch in the corner, and stood to leave when Flint read what was on the paper she had given him and demanded everyone out. 

_The madman on the water._

Flint knew that couldn't be the worst that has been said of him. But it was something else to see it in writing, a mocking reflection of the words he had used with his men the night before. As he forced himself to read the words out loud his voice shook with anger—at Vane, at Eleanor.

At himself. 

This was the man he had turned himself into. He had done it consciously the day he stole a name from a story, knowing the weight of it would one day grow too heavy to bear.

It was heavy now. 

From forty to sixty men. The expected casualties of the confrontation grew, and even as he sent Hornigold and his men out to mitigate it, the weight grew heavier. 

"Can I assume when you say you'll go to the beach to make this appeal, you mean me?" Silver's voice had the slightest note of irritation to it, but he stood up from the window seat anyway. 

Flint really should have just let him walk out the door, to continue with the silence and distance he built between them since Silver came to his cabin last night and found it locked. But as Silver walked past him, the words just slipped out. 

"Why do you think they went up that hill?" 

Silver turned around, eyebrows raised. “Beg pardon? 

Flint regretted the words already, but he couldn’t back down from the question now. “If we’re to stop any more men from joining his side, isn’t it a prerequisite that we try and understand the thinking of the men who have already joined him?”

“Sorry, are you asking my opinion?” His expression still held a look of surprise, but his tone was something far more sardonic, a wordless commentary on the silence that Flint had purposely let grow between them.

Even so, Flint said nothing, letting his expression confirm what he could not with words. In order for Silver to work the men so well, he had to have some idea of how their mind worked. It was not an unreasonable thing to ask his opinion on. But even as Silver mused on the men’s fear of losing the fort versus their fear of Flint, he knew it really wasn’t what he wanted to ask. 

“So you think they see me as the villain in this particular story.”

“I think that would explain their decision, yes.”

Flint tapped his fingers lightly on the desk. “And you? What do you think? You see me as the villain here?”

There. The question was asked. As much as he knew it shouldn’t matter, Silver was the only one besides Miranda that knew of his plans for Nassau. The idea that he may possess that knowledge and still agree with Vane bothered him. For reasons he couldn't pin down. 

Silver hesitated. “You know, I had no intention of staying this long, or even as long as it took for you to find me out. The page from the logbook—well,” he smiled, “that was just a bit of fun, really.”

The muscles in Flint’s jaw clenched in irritation, but he forced himself to say nothing. 

“But then I watched you beat a man to death with a cannon ball,” Silver continued, and his voice held a note of aw, the same one as when he had lovingly voiced the word _chaos_ several nights ago. “You convinced your men that your challenger was the thief even as I held the page in my hand. And again, last night, you orchestrated it so that every complaint the men have—the low stores, the lack of rum, being forced to stay on the ship, the delay in going in back for the gold—was all because of Vane.” Silver chuckled. “Even I did not see where your mind was going there. No, I see you as…" 

Silver trailed off, looking at a point beyond Flint. His face had grown unnaturally still, the façade of humanity slipping just enough for Flint to catch a glimpse of what was beneath. The expression that was revealed seemed almost like desperation, sharp and deadly, hollowing out his cheeks and lighting his eyes with a harsh glint. 

Then Silver blinked, and his expression closed off into a familiar one of amusement as he met Flint’s gaze, human once again. “I see you as my way of staying out of the sea. Maybe not forever, but as long as it remains true, I’m not bothered in the least by whatever labels anyone else decides to affix to you.”

Flint looked down at his hand on the desk as he traced the edge of the map with his fingers. He wasn’t sure what he expected when he asked the question, but when Flint watched Silver's mask slip he thought he may get a real answer, something more than Silver's usual pragmatism. Now he was just left with more questions, and a feeling of disappointment that he didn't want to examine too closely eating away at the edges of his stomach.

“It bothers you though, doesn’t it?” Flint looked up as Silver spoke again. “What they think. With the things you’ve done…” Real surprise colored his voice as he Silver shook his head and Flint wanted to back away from it. “My god. It must be awful being you.” 

“In case you have forgotten, you have helped me with some of those things," he snapped. “Is it not awful being you?”

Silver shrugged one careless shoulder. “It might have been. Once.” He stood up and walked around the chair, placing his palms on the back of it. “But I am long past that now. Unlike you, I don’t question what I am.”

He began to walk away, almost reaching the door before Flint could form the question. “And what is that, exactly?”

Silver paused, fingers already on the door handle. The smile he gave Flint over his shoulder was almost unbothered, but there was a sharp edge to it. A warning. “I’m a monster, of course.”

* * *

The beach was nearly empty when Flint’s crew landed, the bulk of the population having run further inside the city to take shelter once he used the warship to begin the assault. His men spread out quickly, unloading supplies and preparing their weapons.

Flint gave the order to find Silver. He needed a report on his progress. The more men they had on their side, the sooner this would be over with and they could be on their way back to the gold. Something Hornigold would not stop reminding him.

“Adhere to our plan,” he was saying, “and you will have your gold. And I will have my fort.”

Flint wasn’t listening, attention caught on the figure striding toward him. She walked with a confidence even scandal and banishment could not take from her, and the pirates under his command parted for her like water cut by the bow of a ship.

Miranda.

He dismissed Hornigold with a look so he was alone when she reached him. “What are you doing here?” 

“I need to speak to you alone." Her voice was low and urgent.

“You need to leave here right now,” he growled. Did she not understand the danger she had placed herself in by coming here? He had always kept her safe from this part of his life. For all the mutters among the population of New Providence about her relationship with him, she was not a pirate. Should Flint fail and Nassau fall into the hands of the English again he made sure that they had no reason to hang her, too. Now here she was, throwing away those measures in order to walk through Nassau during an assault, entirely unprotected. She needed to leave. 

But she had no intention to. They argued in low voices, conscious of the men around them. 

“I understand why you need this island,” she insisted. “I understand because I was there the day our lives ended and all of this began. But I have been devoted to you since that day. I have been loyal and protective and _fucking_ committed to you since that day.” She leaned forward so they were less than a few inches apart, desperation lacing her voice in a way he could not ignore. 

“I am asking you to come with me,” she pleaded, “so that I can save your life.”

* * *

_"''Be it all one unto thee, whether half frozen or well warm; whether only slumbering, or after a full sleep; whether discommended or commended thou do thy duty: or whether dying or doing somewhat else; for that also “to die,” must among the rest be reckoned as one of the duties and actions of our lives.'"_

_James let the words wash over him, paying more attention to the rhythm of Thomas's voice than the meaning. It was mid-afternoon, and James let the late August heat melt into his skin. He was lazily watching the clouds he could see through the window, the angle better to see the sky from his position sprawled out on the foot of his narrow bed. Thomas was at the head of it, propped up against all James's pillows, leather bound book open in his palms._

_"'Look in, let not either the proper quality, or the true worth of anything pass thee, before thou hast fully apprehended it.'"_

_Thomas's foot was digging into James's side so he wrapped his fingers around his ankle and shifted it, but kept his hand there, circling the bony knob with his thumb._

_"'The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.'"_

_"Hm." James ran his fingers up the back of Thomas's calf._

_"Hm?" Thomas repeated, pulling his foot away in order to dig his toes back into James's side. "You disagree?"_

_James finally dragged his gaze away from the window to look up at Thomas. His blond hair was still in disarray from James's fingers, and the collar of his thin white shirt was gaping open, revealing a glimpse of lightly colored chest hair. Arousal stirred low in James's belly, and he reached for Thomas's leg again, tracing up from his calf to his knee._

_"It just seems weak to me," James told him, "to take no action against someone who has injured you."_

_"Well, I think Marcus Aurelius might argue that to restrain oneself is, in fact, an action in itself."_

_James hummed again and sat up, pulling Thomas's legs straight on the bed so he could straddle his shins. "What was the one before that one?" He placed both hands above Thomas's knees and leaned forward, pressing his palms up the outside of his thighs._

_"Hm? Oh, 'Look in, let not either the proper quality—'"_

_"No," James interrupted him. His hands slipped under the edge of his shirt and he cupped his palms around Thomas's hips. "The other one. The 'whether discommended' part." As he spoke he bent forward, pressing a kiss against his right thigh._

_"'Whether discommended or commended thou do thy duty,'" Thomas recited. He dropped the book onto the bed beside them, hands immediately tangling his finers in James's hair._

_James smiled against his skin. "That's the one. Seems relevant now, what with our plans for Nassau."_

_"'Discommended,'" Thomas repeated. "Yes. I suppose it does. I'm sure the plan will be met with quite a lot of disapproval. I'm likely to be called all manner of things."_

_"Mad," James agreed. He sat up, fingers curling around the bottom of Thomas's shirt in order to tug it off over his head. "Lover of monsters and deviants alike." He said the last with a smirk and pressed a kiss to the soft brush of Thomas's chest hair, now fully revealed._

_"Is that what you think they will call me?" Thomas asked quietly. "A madman?"_

_James propped his chin on Thomas's chest so he could look up at him. He wanted to smooth the fine lines of concern appearing on his brow. "Only at first. Once you succeed they will call you a visionary."_

_"Once we succeed, you mean. You're a part of this as much as I am now."_

_James shook his head. "You're the one with the vision. I am just a lowly second in command who sees to the practical matters."_

_"Well, you need both—vision and practicality—for any plan to succeed." Thomas gathered a lock of loose hair and tucked it behind his ear. He kept his palm resting against the side of James's face._

_"We make good partners then." He leaned further into Thomas's palm, tipping his head so he could brush a light kiss against his wrist._

  
  


It was with a trembling hand that Flint opened the cover of the book on the table, revealing an inscription on the first page that he hadn't been able to bear to look upon for years now. He traced the words with fingers just as callused and weathered as they had been when they were written, but now far more bloody. 

It wasn't true, what he had said to Miranda. He wasn't only ashamed of listening to her those long years ago, but then that was a consequence of knowing, of loving, someone so well. You knew just how to hurt them when you wanted to. 

The truth was, there were many, many things Flint was ashamed of. Shame hung around his neck like a thick chain, partnering with the weight of the deeds done with his stolen name on his shoulders, both threatening to bring him to his knees. 

He'd worried about Eleanor's opinion of him when she handed him Vane's reply, wondered at the thoughts of the men who chose to stand with Vane against him, listened too hard for the whispers of his own crew. It was all to distract himself from the fact that the one person whose opinion would matter the most, Flint was unable to ask. 

What would Thomas think of him now? Of the atrocities he'd committed in his name? 

The question has haunted him for years, but it was not one he ever found the courage to really consider the answer to. 

Miranda had. She would have had ample time to give it careful, awful thought. How many nights had she sat alone in that house, contemplating the twisted horror they had made of Thomas's legacy? 

He owed her more than that. He owed them both more than that. 

Flint closed the book and smoothed his palm over the worn leather one more time. A long breath shuddered through his lungs. 

He would do it. He would take Abigail Ashe to her father, and attempt to convince him to once more take up Thomas's plan for Nassau. The only question was if he could find the courage to tell Miranda the truth. 

Miranda told him she wanted to save his life, but the path they were about to set on would only hasten his death. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flint angsts and thinks a lot in this one. But in his defense, he did just sign his life away. He needed a chapter to deal with it.


	3. Chapter 3

Flint looked back at where Nassau could once be seen on the horizon. It was a day gone and if the wind held, it would be less than a week's journey to Charles Town. Less than a week and everything could change. By the time Flint made it back to Nassau, it might be a very different place. 

If he made it back. 

_"Next item!"_

The boards beneath his feet shook from the force of the men slamming their feet on the deck below and Flint sighed, turning away from the view. 

" _Someone_ was seen sneaking into the stores early this morning. Several rations of salt meat, a bushel of apples and four bottles of rum are missing. Now this person remains unknown to certain parties—" Silver shot a pointed glance at Flint "—and the consensus among our brothers is that it should remain that way...as long as this person shares the rum." 

The men surrounding Silver cheered, slapping each other on the shoulders as they laughed. 

"He's good." At her voice, he turned to look at Miranda. She had abandoned the chair he had set out for her, choosing to stand by his side as he watched his men on the deck below. She caught his eye, tilting her head in Silver's direction. 

"Hm." He was better than good, of course, but he couldn't comment on that. 

"He has a way with them," she continued. "Is that why you have him address the men instead of Mr. Scott? Isn't that a quartermaster's duty?" 

"Not strictly." He placed a hand on her lower back, guiding her from the railing and away from Silver's sphere of influence. Abigail watched them with anxious eyes and Miranda placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as they passed. 

It was different, having Miranda and Abigail on board. Half the men muttered darkly under their breath and kept their distance, but that was not unexpected. Even in the navy the old seamen would be uncomfortable any time they had women on board, whispering old superstitions about bad luck to one another. It was how the other half of the crew acted that was really disconcerting: the courteous nods whenever one of the ladies caught their eye, the careful way they trimmed their vocabulary of some of their more colorful phrases whenever they were in ear shot, the curious, almost shy glances from some of the younger lads who'd joined up.

Even Flint was a little different, now that Miranda was here with him. After all, here they were taking a leisurely stroll around the quarterdeck together. Flint couldn't imagine any time he walked on deck among the men before this being referred to as a "stroll."

"Abigail asked if she could have some paper and quill to write with," Miranda told him. "I think it's a good idea. It will keep her occupied."

"I'll see that she is given some." There were several empty log books left from the previous captain in his cabin, one of those would do nicely for her. They had reached the far end of the deck, away from the raucous happening on the one below and Flint paused, eyes once more drawn to the horizon. 

"I wish you would tell me what is troubling you." Miranda said suddenly, and Flint turned to her in surprise. "You've been pensive and uncommunicative since we set sail."

"You mean more so than usual?" He gave her a half smile with the joke, and she returned it, expression softening.

She stepped closer and rested her hand on his biceps. "You're not _always_ that bad. Just usually." 

It wasn’t so much an argument as it was an agreement and he chuckled, and reached up to lay his hand over hers. 

_Partners_ she had called them, back in Nassau, and he wasn't sure if he had ever loved her as much as he did then, with her chin titled high and jaw set in determination, waiting for him to argue. Yes, he'd thought, she should come. If what they were attempting in Charles Town should be the beginning of his end, then he wanted her with him.

He should tell her. 

The truth of the thought had rang so clear in his mind in that moment that he nearly opened his mouth to say the words, before he was interrupted by a voice calling for his attention. He'd looked away from Miranda and turned to look at the face of his end. 

Silver had stopped short at the sight of them together, a curiously wary expression taking over his face as his eyes flickered between him and Miranda. Sensing his discomfort, Miranda had stepped back, and Flint had lost his opportunity. One, Flint admitted to himself, that he hadn’t tried to find again since. 

He certainly wasn’t going to take the opportunity now, on the deck of his ship with all his crew within earshot. 

“The closer we get to Charles Town the more pensive I am sure to be,” he said instead. “Which is not unexpected when we are risking everything we have worked towards these past ten years on the good will of one man.” 

“I might remind you that Thomas believed in that one man,” she said pointedly. “He had nothing but confidence not just in Peter’s desire to aid in our goal, but also his capability of aiding us.”

Flint nodded, accepting her point, and led her back to the chair beside Abigail’s. Another burst of laughter could be heard from the deck below as Silver wrapped up his address. 

Thomas believed in Flint too, and now look where they were. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Flint ordered Silver to follow him with a jerk of his head, and he waited with the door open, hand clenched on the handle, until Silver walked into the cabin behind him. 

Then he slammed the door. 

“Is this some sort of game to you?” he snarled. 

Silver backed up a step in surprise before his expression settled in a scowl. “I’m sure it is, but perhaps you would be so good as to tell me what, precisely, you are pissed off about now so I can properly answer you.”

Flint held back a frustrated huff and stalked around his desk, waiting until he was seated to speak again. “Solomon Little.” His words were more calm this time, if clipped. “Apparently he faced the gallows at Charles Town as well as got beat up by school mates at—what was it? St. John’s School for Boys?” 

“Oh, that.” Silver shrugged and threw himself down into the chair across from Flint. “So I used the same name twice. What of it?”

Flint took a deep breath. “How many times has Solomon appeared in your stories? How many other names, places, events are repeated?” He gestured at the door. “What if one of the men catch on to these little tidbits you like to drop into your words as you persuade them?”

Silver shrugged again, the motion slumping him further into the seat. “It won’t matter. They’ll listen to me regardless. I have their ear now. I’ve caught them.”

“Not _all_ of them,” Flint growled. “Just a few minutes ago Billy was talking to Bernard, laughing with him about having his story about Charles Town stolen by you.”

“Well, that’s Billy,” Silver said with a carelessness that got underneath Flint’s skin. “It doesn’t work on Billy. He understands the power of words too well for his mind to be caught by them.” 

Flint clenched his jaw. Breathed through his nose. “I need it to work on Billy.” 

“Believe me, I have tried but it—”

“ _Billy_ has these men’s loyalty in a way that neither you nor I can compete with. After what happened with Gates, and the night he went overboard, I cannot trust him, no matter how on our side he seems at the moment. You _must_ get him under your control—”

“I’ve _told_ you, it doesn’t work—”

“Then what good are you?” Flint snapped.

Silver’s mouth closed on the rest of his words, a bitter, resentful look on his face, and suddenly it was like that night on the beach in Nassau all over again. 

“There is no ‘we,’” Silver had interrupted Flint's words with that night, pointing out that his end of the agreement was that he would help Flint keep Nassau _out_ of England’s hands, since the subsequent chaos that action would create was a matter for Silver to witness and enjoy. The pardons would only create peace, prosperity and a quick end to their agreement, neither of which Silver was interested in. 

“Those men listen to you, not just because you make them, but because they give a shit what you have to say,” Flint had growled. “Where else in the world is that true? Where else would you wake up in the morning and matter? The _sea?”_ He’d leaned back, keeping his eyes locked on Silver’s angry gaze. “If that were the case there, why are you so desperate not to go back?” 

The exchange had lingered between them during every interaction they have had since, and it was between them now. Flint pushed forward anyway. 

"If you cannot aid me in my goal of achieving a prosperous Nassau—no matter how that goal is reached—then why should I hold up my end of the bargain?" 

Silver's eyes narrowed. "I might remind you that if you renege on our deal, I would have no reason not to complete the task I was sent here for to begin with."

"And then be forced to return to the sea," Flint countered. "Something I know you are loath to do. And _I_ might remind you that you are on this ship and on this crew with my permission. Something I can revoke at any moment. If it takes finding a way to prove to the men what you are, believe me, I will do it."

"So we are at an impasse," the corners of Silver's lips turned up at the corners as he said the word. 

"So we are." 

There was a beat as they stared at one another. 

Then Silver leaned back again in his chair, looking lazy and unbothered once again. "This doesn't change the fact that I told you my ability to influence people is not perfect, and that it doesn't always work."

Flint also relaxed in his chair, the anger that had been roiling beneath his skin since he overheard Billy suddenly toothless. "I seem to recall you also saying that it takes time to build up. So build it up." 

Silver tipped his head back, gaze going to the wood planks above as he let out a slow breath. "I will keep working on Billy," he finally conceded. "That is all I can assure you. I cannot promise you results." 

Flint considered this a moment before nodding curtly. "That will have to do." 

He picked up a pen and opened the book containing his plans for Nassau, should everything in Charles Town go right. Silver lingered in the chair on the other side of the desk, his gaze as he silently watched Flint work like an itch on his skin he could not relieve. When he could stand it no longer, Flint paused, raising his eyebrows at him. "Don't you have somewhere to be? You are still the ship's cook aren't you? I believe supper is in just a few hours." 

Silver took the dismissal with a scowl, but it was a far cry from the resentment that had simmered between them a few minutes ago. When he closed the door behind him Flint dropped all pretense of working and slumped back in his chair, idly playing with the rings on his right hand as he thought. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Flint had suggested that one of the private officer berths—traditionally used as extra storage once a ship was commandeered by a pirate crew—would do well for Abigail, but Miranda had argued against it. She felt that if left all alone, her fear of the crew would keep her awake and that it would be best if she stayed in his cabin with the two of them, where she could feel secure. Flint wasn’t sure if her fear of _him_ wouldn’t also keep her awake, but he had taken pains to procure two extra large hammocks for their comfort and hung them where the vanguard had previously slept. 

Abigail did sleep, or at least pretended to, which was more than Flint could say. 

He lay awake in his bed, mind too tumultuous to drift off. He could not ignore the sounds of the hammocks swinging with the movement of the ship, the creaking of the wood boards that held their weight. Flint had been a sailor nearly all his life, and the sound was nearly as familiar to him as the sound of his own breath, but tonight his mind could not let it go. Normally, on nights like this, Flint would turn to the bottle. A few glasses of rum or whiskey, a late night conversation with his quartermaster and he would be able to fall onto his mattress and into a thankfully dreamless sleep. 

It would not be appropriate for him to dig into his stores of alcohol while Miranda—and more importantly, Peter Ashe’s young daughter—were sleeping mere feet away, and Gates was no longer here.

It was that last thought that had him up, out of his bed and into his boots in a few seconds. Neither woman stirred as he softly made his way to his door, and soon he was heading up the stairs and out into the cool night air. He passed a few members of the limited night crew managing the ship with a nod and proceeded to the aft end of the ship where he could be alone with his thoughts. 

What would Gates think of their plan now? He would be incredulous at first, and more than a little skeptical, but he more than anyone knew their way of life was coming to an end. Flint could see him clear as day in his mind: sitting across from Flint in his cabin, hand curled around a glass, face red both from drink and laughter.

“God damn,” he would chuckle. “We’re English again. God fearing, law abiding citizens of the British fucking Empire. Who would have imagined.”

Guilt and loss twisted in Flint’s stomach like nausea. So many sacrifices. So many hard choices. Was it all to be for nothing? The _Urca_ gold was gone, there was nothing more to be done about that, and even without it Flint knew that securing the pardons had to be the right way, the way with the least amount of bloodshed. 

It was the way Thomas had chosen. 

Perhaps it was right then, that he be the final sacrifice added to the toll, that after the pirates had been pardoned and Nassau was once more prospering under a new governor, Captain Flint would disappear from this world and into the sea, without anyone ever knowing what part he had to play in all of it.

There are no legacies. Only the water. 

A soft _thump_ interrupted his thoughts and Flint spun around at the noise. From his position on the poop deck he had a clear view of the quarterdeck below and his eyes caught on two hands appearing on the top of the rail. A shout to the watch started in his throat and then died before it could be voiced as the hands were followed by a head of sopping, dark curls. 

Silver pulled himself over the rail with an unnatural amount of ease, landing almost silently on his bootless feet, a puddle already forming around them from the sea water that was dripping from his trousers, which were the only item of clothing he still wore. Flint sucked in a surprised breath and Silver froze at the sound, shoulders hunching in a defensive posture. He looked ready to run. 

Or to attack. 

Slowly Silver looked up, shoulders only relaxing slightly when he caught sight of Flint above him. The moonlight caught on the blue of his eyes, making it seem like they were almost glowing when they caught Flint’s, and that same light revealed three slits on either side of his neck, the skin fluttering around the openings. Silver smiled and revealed a set of jagged teeth—dark, like the discarded shark teeth merchants liked to sell in baskets at the port markets. 

Flint didn’t shudder, but it was a near thing, and Silver's smile grew wider, as if he knew it. 

He tipped his head back and shook out his wet curls. Flint watched in fascination as the slits in his neck closed up and disappeared, leaving only smooth skin behind. When he tipped his head forward again the glow of his eyes had dimmed, and when he smiled it was with a set of white, perfectly human teeth. He raised his brows expectantly at Flint, glancing quickly at the men on watch duty above them. 

His message was clear: if Flint wanted to have Silver removed from the ship, now was the time. Half naked and soaked in sea water, there was no other explanation other than that Silver had just come up from the water. The wind was in their favor; they had to be pushing six knots. There was no way a mortal man could dive into those waters and keep up with the ship without someone throwing him a lifeline. Even if some of the men could rationalize it somehow, half of them were too superstitious to be anything other than relieved if Flint insisted he be removed after this.

Slowly, Flint shook his head.

Silver smirked, satisfied. With a nod, he silently made his way across the deck, sneaking around the men on duty to get to the stairs leading below. He stopped at the top of them, craning his neck to give Flint one last, piercing look.

Miranda was awake when Flint opened the door to his cabin, and though she didn’t say anything, her concerned gaze followed him all the way to his bed. He cast her what he hoped was a reassuring glance, took off his boots, and lay back down on his bed. It swung gently with his weight and Flint tried to let the motion soothe him as he thought back over the encounter with Silver. 

Even if Miranda did know what Silver was, or what Flint had agreed to, he did not think he could voice what it was that troubled him about tonight. His mind was caught, not by the eerie way Silver had moved across the ship, or the trail of wet footprints he left behind that dried up too quickly, but by the way the moonlight had glanced off the bare skin of his back, glistening like scales under water. He thought about that last, lingering look: the intensity of his gaze, his lips parting over his teeth, sharp and jagged once more, the way he tilted his head to one side in what was almost a beckon. 

Flint didn’t know if that look was a warning, or an invitation. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The sun glinted brightly off the water, causing Flint to squint as he observed the deck below him. The sky above was clear, giving no cloud cover. De Groot kept eyeing the bright blue of it irritably, muttering about the loss of good wind, but Flint wasn't concerned. They had made good time over the last few days, and a day or so of gentle pace would be good for the men, allowing them to relax before what was sure to be a tense reception when they made it to Charles Town. 

Silver seemed to take the idea of relaxing to heart. He was currently sprawled out in a sunny spot on the main deck, shirt balled up under his head as a cushion, face tilted toward the sun. He'd taken to doing that on his breaks anytime the day was sunny. While the rest of crew stayed in the shade, wiping sweat from their brows and muttering about sunburns, Silver sought out the sun, bearing as much skin as he could to its rays with a content and drowsy look on his face. He never seemed to burn, and in fact, his skin never darkened at all, staying the same smooth tan it was when Flint first met him. 

"You should be more subtle, you know," came a soft voice behind his shoulder, and he turned to look into Miranda's teasing eyes. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Oh, I think you know very well what I mean." She stepped in close, her head barely tipping in the direction of where Silver was sprawled out on the deck below. The angle of the sun meant Silver was facing towards them, allowing for a perfect view of the pleased look on his face and the way his left hand rested low on his stomach, fingers curled lazily inward just below his navel. 

Flint felt a flush build on the back of his neck, one that only ever seemed to happen beneath Miranda's knowing eyes. 

Her smile widened. 

"It's not what you are thinking," he assured her. Though he couldn't tell her that he'd actually been busy contemplating what, exactly, manner of creature he currently had as a cook. 

She only hummed in response, eyes looking over Silver's form appraisingly. "He is very handsome. I can see why you stare." He opened his mouth to deny it again, when she shifted her gaze to him, eyes lit with a wicked amusement. "Should we invite him to our bed, do you think?" 

Flint's mouth snapped closed. 

"It would have to wait until we were back on New Providence, of course," Miranda continued, taking obvious delight in the flush that was now crawling up his neck to reach his ears. "We could not trust we would not be interrupted here on this ship, and your bed in the cabin is hardly sufficient for what I have in mind." 

Flint's mind suddenly caught on the image of Miranda's dainty fingers tangling in a mess of dark curls, her head tilted back in pleasure, a glimpse of unnaturally blue eyes catching his over the line of her thigh. Heat burned low in his belly even as the skin on his neck prickled at the thought of letting Silver get so close to her. 

"It's really not what you think," he repeated hoarsely. 

"Hm," she said again. She placed her palm against the flush of his cheek, curling her fingers behind his ear. Her expression was solemn now, eyes tracing his features as if it had been years since she had last seen him. "Maybe so. But there is no shame in it, if it is. I want you to be happy, James. _Thomas_ would want you to be happy. We cannot live in a grave." 

Flint cupped her wrist with his hand, pressing a small kiss to her wrist. "I know." The truth about Silver and what he meant for Flint's life beat harshly against his ribs.

With a wistful smile, Miranda left his side to take her seat by Abigail, who still seemed nervous anytime Miranda left her alone for too long.

Flint flagged down Billy. 

"Tell Mr. Silver to put his fucking shirt back on," he growled. "There's a girl on board for Christ's sake." 

Billy shot Abigail—who hadn't looked up from whatever she was scribbling in the journal Flint had given her for the past hour—a skeptical glance, but he did what he was told. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Flint took a sip from his glass, the burn of the rum on his throat a familiar comfort. Across from him Miranda did the same. The only sounds in the cabin were the creaking of the wood as Abigail's hammock swung gently as she slept and the soft _tap_ the glasses made each time they were set back on the desk. 

There was nothing left to say. No plans to make, no manipulation or scheme to consider. 

He would be judged as he was, with the weight of the sins he committed as Captain Flint tallied against the hope for Nassau's future. 

Some of those sins were performed with cold, calculating deliberation. He needed the reputation as the most fearsome pirate in the Caribbean. The more terrible his legend grew, the easier it would be to make ships surrender without a fight, which meant more lives spared on both sides of a confrontation. Some of those sins were not a careful strategy, however. Some were done because he wanted to. Some, like the night he found Alfred Hamilton cowering behind a locked door that could not protect him, felt good. 

Any of these sins, or all of them, could be damning. 

Of course, Flint mused as he took another drink, he was damned either way. 

The silence was broken by a shout from above, followed by a loud _thump_. For one second Flint caught Miranda's eyes, wide with shock and fear, and then he leaped out of the chair, clearing the cabin in long strides and taking the ladder above two steps at a time. A crowd had gathered on the quarterdeck, but they parted when Flint ran up, revealing the mangled body of one of the men at their feet. 

"It's Nicholas," Muldoon, who was the closest Flint muttered. "He was on the main tonight." 

Nicholas Irving was one of the men Silver had sent to watch over the _Urca_ gold. Slowly, Flint turned around, instinct telling him what he would see. 

On the other end of the ship Silver was standing alone on the upper deck. His hands were hanging loosely at his sides and his eyes were locked on Irving. 

His face was as pale as a corpse. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


They held the funeral the next day. Any levity that the past few easy days had instilled in the men was gone and it was with a solemn hush that the crew said goodbye to a brother. 

Abigail, as usual, stayed close to Miranda, her eyes wide as she took in the proceedings and the countenance of the men. Her dark eyes flickered to a member of the crew lingering by the railing in his own silent farewell, and her brow creased in quiet confusion. 

He supposed it must clash with her upbringing, to learn that monsters could love. 

The closer they grew to their destination, the busier Flint became. There was the usual restlessness in the crew to tamp down whenever they sailed to a port with no plans to let the crew go ashore, but thankfully Silver's story about Charles Town—even if it wasn't his—had done its job warning the men, so when Flint announced that only himself, Miranda and Abigail Ashe would take the launch to the town there was minimal grumbling among the crew. Still, there had not been a free moment to get Silver alone to discuss the incident with Irving. 

Until they crossed each other in the passage to the store room. 

"Captain," Silver nodded at him as he passed, presumably just having checked the stores for supper. 

Flint quickly glanced over his shoulder, and realizing they were alone, snatched him by the collar and dragged him back into the store room.

"W-what —" 

Flint slammed the door closed and shoved Silver up against it, pressing his forearm against his windpipe and cutting off the rest of his words. 

"What happened with Irving?" he hissed. 

" _What?_ " Silver wheezed. "N-nothing. What are you talking about?" 

His eyes were wide, expression a convincing look of surprise, but Flint knew better by now than to trust it. 

"I saw you last night when he fell," he growled, pressing still closer so Silver had no opportunity to look away. "He was one of the men you chose to watch the gold. Did you compel him?" 

"Your faith in my abilities is heartwarming," Silver reached up and grasped Flint's forearm, shoving it away from his throat. Flint allowed it, but merely moved it down to his chest, leaning more of his weight on the arm in order to keep him pinned. 

"However," Silver continued, "even I cannot compel a man so far against his own interests that he would kill himself. Even if I could, why would I? They did their job and they came back to tell us what happened as soon as they could. It's not their fault we lost the opportunity." 

The words made sense, but something was still…off about the whole situation. He vividly remembered Silver's expression last night. It was more than shock at a crewmember's unexpected death—it was fear. 

"What aren't you telling me?" 

"Oh, a great many things," Silver said lightly. "But our contract does not give you the right to all my secrets, Captain." 

Flint slammed his fist against the wood beside Silver's head. "Stop playing," he snapped. "You know what I am talking about." 

But Silver wasn't paying attention to his words. Flint had just removed his arm from between them, leaving Flint free to lean threateningly close into Silver space, but Silver didn't look threatened, either. His mouth was partly open, eyes focused directly on Flint's mouth, inches from his own. 

Flint was suddenly very aware of just how close they were. They were chest to chest now and Flint could feel the motion of each, quick, stilted breath Silver took against his own. 

Silver dragged his gaze away from Flint's mouth to his eyes. They were dark, pupils blown so wide that only a thin ring of blue could be seen. Without looking away, he lifted his chin just slightly. 

The back of Silver's head hit the door with a hollow _thunk_ as Flint kissed him, and he took the opportunity to slide his tongue between his lips when they parted at the impact. Silver didn't object. His hands grasped at Flint's shoulder and waist, pulling him tighter against him, sliding his own tongue against Flint's with an appreciative hum.

Flint dragged his hand up the line of Silver's throat to the back of his head. He wound his fingers in those damn curls and then made fist, pulling Silver's head back with a rough tug. Their lips parted as Silver gasped, but Flint captured them again, sliding his thigh between Silver's. Mimicking that night in his cabin, Flint bit down harshly on Silver's bottom lip, drew it into his own mouth, and sucked. 

Silver shuddered and moaned, hands scrambling at Flint's coat as he tried to get it off his shoulders. 

_"Land ho!"_

Flint wrenched himself away with a gasp.

Neither said a word, their harsh breaths as they stared at one another from the distance Flint had put between them the only sound in the room. After a brief moment, Silver took a step to the side, away from the door. 

Flint grabbed the handle and swung it open, stepping into the passage with quick steps. At the foot of the ladder he paused, looking back. 

Silver was watching him from the doorway. His hair was a wild tangle from Flint's hands, and a bright flush filled his cheeks. Flint opened his mouth to say something, anything—and then snapped it closed, turning away in order to swing onto the ladder. 

Later. The cause of the commotion he could hear above needed all his focus now. 

De Groot held out the spyglass as Flint strode up to him, and Flint lifted it to his eye. As it shifted into focus Flint could just make out the shape of a town against the line of the horizon. 

Charles Town. 

  
  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

The footprints gleamed in the moonlight. 

Flint followed their trail across the main deck. The wood planks were curiously cold against the souls of his bare feet. He ascended the stairs to the upper deck, and his feet made no sound on the steps. 

Everything was silent. 

The ship rocked with the force of a sea that made no sound, the wind that filled their sails rattled no ropes. Around him the men worked with a quiet that was beyond hush—opening their mouths to shout and gagging before the words could be released. 

Flint walked on, following the footsteps to the bow of the ship. 

She was waiting for him there. 

Filth lined the bottom of her skirts, thick and viscous as it dripped from the hem, forming a puddle at her feet. Her hands were loose at her sides, droplets of murky water clinging to the fingertips. The strands of hair falling from its once elegant bun were wet, plastered to the back of her neck.

Slowly, Miranda turned around. 

Her eyes were solemn as they traced his features, taking him in like it had been years since she had laid eyes on him. She reached out one hand to cup his cheek, brushing her fingertips along the shell of his ear. 

Flint let his eyes close, leaning into the wet warmth of her palm. 

Warmth.

Flint's eyes snapped open and his jaw dropped in silent a scream, his throat convulsing around the sound as it tried to escape.

It wasn't hair on her neck, it was blood. Thick rivulets seeped from the bullet hole in her head, collecting in her hair and running down her skin, staining the fabric of her dress, her throat, the tops of her breasts. It dripped from the palm against his cheek. 

He threw himself backward and stumbled, landing hard on the ground. She took a step toward him, blood-stained hands reaching out and when she parted her lips to speak she revealed a set of dark, jagged teeth. 

Flint jerked awake, hands automatically grabbing at the hand touching his shoulder. The hand wrenched itself from his grip and he threw himself off the bed, heedless of the bang it made when it swung against the wall as he lunged for the pistol he kept loaded nearby. 

"Wait! It's just me." 

Flint paused, hand curled around the handle. He looked over his shoulder and could just barely make out the outline of Silver in the dark, the little light coming from the windows catching on the unnatural blue of his eyes. He let go of the gun.

Flint walked over to the chair in front of the desk and dropped into it. He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes and forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. "The fuck are you doing here?" 

"You were having a nightmare. I could hear it through the wall." 

Silver's leg was still healing. Howell had grudgingly agreed to let him wear the boot, but he refused to let Silver sleep in a hammock, not wanting him to injure himself further by attempting to get out of the swinging hammock and onto the floor of the rocking ship with it on. The _Walrus_ didn't have the deep window seats the Spanish warship had, and Silver flat out refused to sleep on the cot in Howell's quarters, so the crew came up with a solution. They happily cleared out the officer's berth closest to Flint's cabin and set up a cot inside so their new quartermaster could sleep in relative comfort. 

Even after sharing the cabin with Silver on their voyage back to Nassau from Charles Town, Flint felt that the new proximity in their sleeping quarters was stifling. 

He merely grunted in response and reached for his boots. The faintest traces of dawn could be seen through the windows, the sky just starting to lighten. Late enough for him to get dressed and start the day. 

Silver watched him, one hand gripping the edge of the table in order to brace himself against the rocking of the ship. "What's it like?" 

"What's what like? Nightmares? Don't you have your own?" he muttered irritably. He got his second boot on and stood up, reaching for his coat. 

"No," Silver replied easily. "I don't dream." 

For the second time, Flint paused, but just for a second. He swung his coat over his shoulders. "Well, I don't remember mine," he lied. 

He adjusted the collar of his coat and turned around, brushing by Silver as he walked out the door. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The magistrate was expecting them. Colonial regulars formed a perimeter around the city and patrolled the streets, which were empty otherwise. 

That did not stop him.

Nor did the pistol the guard aimed at him, the shot going wide. He cut through the man, and the men after him, and the men surrounding the gallows where his fellow pirates still hung, on display, like a beacon shining over the sea calling for his presence. 

The magistrate here should have known better. There are some monsters whose names you do not dare speak, lest they summon them. The kind of monsters that are merciless, that are cruel. The kind that do not stay their hand for so-called honest men, nor hesitate at the sound of pleas. 

Miranda stared at a point in the distance with dead eyes, a pool of blood seeping into her hair. A few feet from her lay Thomas, red splattering his fine clothes. 

He blinked, and the scene changed. 

The woman's hair was blonde, not brown. The man's body shifted back into the portly form of the magistrate, his graying hair now dark with blood. 

He turned around. Walked out of the room.

Captain Flint had already killed those he loved. It was only in his mind that he was forced to kill them over and over again. 

Silver was waiting for them when returned, immediately giving the men orders to store their haul and get them underway. Flint didn't quite twitch at the easy authority in his voice, but it was a near thing. He didn't linger, letting Silver know to remove Dobbs from the vanguard before heading down to his cabin. 

He did not sleep, but it didn't matter. With or without closing his eyes he saw them on the floor, felt the hot metal of the pistol in his hand. 

He was still awake when Silver tried sneaking into the room the next morning. It was the second time in two days, but this time he heard the sound of the door as it closed. He heard the slow _step...pause, step...pause_ of Silver's gait, the tiny intake of breath he made every time he put weight on his wounded leg. 

"Your days of approaching unannounced are behind you," he drawled. 

He opened his eyes in time to see an expression of irritation flash across Silver's face, but he let the comment go, instead reporting on the situation with Dobbs. 

Silver's leg was just one of the things they didn't talk about. Flint wondered sometimes about what went on in that room, if Silver really had developed such loyalty to the crew that he sacrificed a part of himself to save their lives, or if he thought he could influence the quartermaster's mind and failed. Maybe it had been both. Maybe it had been something else entirely. 

Either way, Flint didn't press, knowing such queries would only leave himself open to a discussion of his own loss. Instead, they eyed each other warily, like two snarling, wounded animals who had a grudging understanding not to approach one another lest they also get bit. 

At least, Flint thought they had an understanding.

Silver's words as he spoke about taking Flint out of vanguard had a familiar rhythm about them. If Flint let it, his mind would be caught by that rhythm, pulled beneath it like debris tumbled by a wave on the beach. He didn't know if Silver hoped that this time it would work on Flint, or if it was just habit to try to use his influence every time he argued a point, but Flint had no patience with it. 

"The crew has spilled a great deal of blood to make your name what it is," Silver was saying. "It doesn't belong to you. It's a jointly held asset belonging to every man who sacrificed some part of himself to build it. They have a say in how it is managed, and I am the voice of it. It is clear to me—"

"A jointly held asset," Flint repeated, cutting him off. "You know better than anyone that is not true. The crew may have helped me build the name, but I am the one who must bear the burden of it. _I_ am the one who is damned by it. So tell me, Mr. Silver," he turned away from the windows to look Silver in the eye, "whose sacrifice are you using your voice to honor—the crew? Or yours?" 

A muscle flexed in Silver's jaw. 

"It occurs to me," Flint continued in a quiet voice, "that should I fail to return from one of these raids, the task you were assigned would be completed without you and you would be forced to return to your...existence in the sea. I imagine it is that thought, rather than any concern for the crew or for Nassau that is prompting this conversation."

Silver took a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I understand," he said instead of a direct response to Flint's conjecture, "that this is all incredibly personal to you after the death of Mrs. Barlow—" 

The mention of Miranda was too much, and it was with real anger that he stepped forward. 

"Stop." 

He slowly crowded into Silver's space, forcing him to look up to meet his gaze. 

"Now you may have wormed your way into the heads of the men out there, and they've granted you authority over them without knowing what it is you are. I allowed it, as it served my purpose, but let me be clear: in my head, you are not welcome." 

They were standing inches away now, so close that Flint could feel the brush of Silver's breath against the skin of his jaw. The feeling was familiar, and he realized, suddenly, that this was the closest they had been to one another since that moment in the storeroom, before Charles Town. 

He pulled himself away with a jerk, turning his back on Silver. He leaned on the desk, looking at the sea charts spread out across its surface but not seeing them. "Do you have anything else to report?"

There was a moment of tense silence and Flint held himself still, waiting to see if Silver would push the conversation more. Then he heard Silver give a small, almost imperceptible sigh.

"No," he muttered, defeated.

"Then we're done here."

He stayed where he was as Silver walked out of the room, listening to the sound of his uneven footsteps fading away.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The _Straight Arrow_ was eerily quiet. Their footsteps as they walked through the empty galley and narrow passages were too loud, with nothing but the groan of the wood as it was rocked by the sea to drown them out. Empty hammocks swayed mournfully with just a soft shuffle of fabric, no weight to make the beams holding them up creak. 

It was like a scene from one of his nightmares. He half expected to look up at Billy and see Thomas glaring at him accusingly instead, to hear his grandfather's last gasping breaths come from the captain slumped at his desk, to look in the corner and see Miranda, her features distorted, mouth permanently open in a scream cut too short. 

Everything about the silent, abandoned ship reminded him of death.

In contrast, the storm was pure wrath. Flint recognized it. It was familiar—like blood on his skin, a cannonball in his palm. It was like unleashing the full force of a warship on a murderous, bloodthirsty town, like using his blade to cut down the man who took everything from him. 

He embraced it. 

With everyone else below deck, Flint bound himself to the wheel. The rain lashed against his face as he tried to keep it steady against the gale, and he looked up at the angry sky above him and bared his teeth, defying it. Daring it. 

He didn't remember losing consciousness. He didn't remember who dragged him into the crew's sleeping quarters and dumped him into a hammock, but he remembered the dream. 

Miranda was standing in the captain's cabin of the abandoned ship. At her feet was a mess of loose paper, scattered as if tossed by the wind. He picked one off the ground to read and it had the same phrase over and over again, written in her elegant, familiar script. 

_We die alone._

He looked up. Miranda's face was now just inches from his own and when she opened her mouth it was not a scream that erupted from her throat, but the howling rage of a tempest. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


_Becalmed_. 

De Groot said the word with grim certainty. A grimness that was echoed in Flint as he looked around the ship. Already the heat from the sun was oppressive, sapping the energy of men already weary from the battle with the storm. The sea and the sun made a wall of blue around them, blending into each other, not a cloud in sight. 

"You'll need to redo the duty schedule," he told Billy. "Short shifts, essential posts only. Everyone else needs to be below deck or in what shade they can find, conserving their energy." 

Billy nodded and Flint started to turn away but paused at the uncertainty on Billy's face.

"Is there something else?" 

"It's Mr. Silver, Captain."

Flint blinked in surprise, only just realizing that Silver, who should have been a part of this conversation, was nowhere in sight. An uncomfortable feeling—almost like dread—twisted his stomach. "What about him?" 

"He—he was with Muldoon when he…" Billy trailed off, swallowing. "We found them in the hold. They had been plugging up leaks during the storm. Muldoon was pinned under the water by a cannon and Silver was just sitting there...staring."

Billy had given Flint a quick rundown of the status of the crew as they made their way to De Groot, but he'd had no time to discuss how Muldoon had died. "Go on," he pressed.

"Captain, Silver hasn't said a word since we found him." Billy's voice was thick with concern, brows furrowed over worried eyes. 

Flint took a deep breath, the matching worry he felt tangling uneasily with relief. "Where is Mr. Silver now?" 

"We put him in your cabin." When Flint raised his eyebrows Billy shrugged. "No one would bother him there. And I hoped.." Billy hesitated again. "I hoped you could get him through this. He talks to you." 

Flint eyed Billy with a little suspicion, searching for any hidden meaning in the words, but all he saw was that same worry. He nodded. "Get to work on those duty lists," he ordered. 

Silver didn't acknowledge Flint when he opened the door to the cabin. He was hunched in the chair in front of the desk, elbows braced on his splayed thighs, head down as he stared, unblinkingly at the floor. 

He didn't so much as flinch when Flint let the door slam shut behind him. 

Flint crossed the room to his desk, swiftly bending to yank open the bottom drawer. He pulled out two glasses and a bottle of whiskey. All three in one hand, he used his other to grab the back of his chair, dragging it around the desk to the side of the one Silver was slouched in. It was the close proximity that finally made Silver move, a dull surprise registering on his face when he looked up from the floor to stare as Flint sat quietly beside him. 

Silver looked like shit. His hair was coming loose from its tie in a tangled, matted mess, and his eyes were red-rimmed as they focused on the whiskey Flint held out to him. His hand trembled as he reached out and took it from him, knocking back half of it with a grimace. 

Flint knew Silver and Muldoon had been friends. He'd seen the two of them over the last few months, laughing and talking together. Silver smiled at everyone, it was one element to his manipulation, but Flint could tell that what he had shared with Muldoon had been sincere. There was no "getting through" something like that, as Billy hoped. Flint knew from experience. You bore the weight of it on your soul for the rest of your life, and you just had to learn how to force yourself to keep going. 

He didn't press Silver to talk. He leaned back in his own chair and took a sip of the whiskey. 

"Do you remember what it was like to drown?" Silver finally asked after a while. His voice was a harsh rasp, almost breaking on the vowels. 

Flint considered the question. "Not really, no," he answered honestly. "I must have passed out from the bullet wound before I really started to." 

Silver didn't look up from the whiskey he was slowly twirling in the glass. He hadn't taken more than that first drink. "I do." 

Flint paused with his own drink halfway to his mouth, surprised. 

“Muldoon said he thought the sea would make him warm, in the end,” he continued dully. “But it was nothing so… gentle as that. My lungs burned like I breathed in fire instead of water. It spread to the muscles in my arms and legs. My throat spasmed, then my limbs. I couldn’t control it, I couldn’t fight it anymore. I sank further and further down, knowing I was going to die.” 

Silver slowly placed the glass on the edge of Flint’s desk. “In the end, it wasn’t what I expected. No darkness. No peace. It was like…” his voice trailed off. 

“Like?” Flint prompted. He watched as Silver used two fingers to push the glass the rest of the way. It skittered across the wood, the whiskey sloshing up against the sides, just short of spilling over.

“Like everything light in me, every good thought or decent impulse had been drawn out, piece by piece, until even my body had been twisted by what was left.” 

Flint leaned forward. “Is that how it happened? How you… became what you are?”

Silver caught his eyes for a moment and then looked away—a silent confirmation. Flint sucked in a quiet breath, took another swallow of the whiskey, before reaching across Silver to place his own glass on the desk. The burn of the alcohol in his chest somehow failed to be a comfort now. 

The glass had just touched the wood when another, awful thought occurred to him. 

“What happened to you—did that happen to Muldoon? Will he be like you are?”

Silver didn’t answer. He took in a long, shaking breath, and Flint could feel the release of it against his neck, they were so close. 

He pulled back. 

Silver’s hand shot out, stopping him. His fingers curled tightly into the fabric of his shirt and Flint turned to Silver, confused. “What—”

He never finished the thought, the question cut off by the lips pressing firmly into his. 

It was like the storm had disappeared from the sky only to sink beneath Silver’s skin. The hands that kept tugging Flint closer were shaking as they grabbed at his arms, his shoulders, his neck, and frantic, pleading groans escaped Silver's throat as he bit at Flint's lips. 

Flint pulled away with a gasp. He had been pulled into a crouch over Silver in the chair, balancing himself by a hand on the desk and one knee braced on the chair by Silver's thigh, and still Silver tried to tug him closer, neck craning to reach his lips. His red-rimmed eyes were wild when they locked on Flint's, and his nails dug deeper into his shoulders when Flint resisted his pull. His whole body screamed what his mouth seemed unable to. 

_Please._

Flint wrapped a hand around the back of Silver's and yanked him up to him, meeting Silver's eager mouth with his own. An equal fervor was building within his chest and he groaned when Silver scraped his teeth along his bottom lip. Silver's right hand slipped underneath the collar of his shirt to scratch at the skin of his back, torso lifting off the back of the chair in an effort to be closer. 

Flint pulled back, but before Silver could finish his sound of protest Flint had grabbed him by the waist, dropping back in his own chair and, mindful of his leg, pulling Silver over to press against him, chest to chest, thighs spread in a straddle over his own. 

" _Oh,"_ Silver gasped, and molded himself against Flint. 

Even in the oppressive heat of the day, Silver's body felt strangely cool against Flint's own, and he tugged at the bottom of Silver's shirt, pulling the front from his trousers so he could run his hand up the smooth, cool skin of his stomach. His fingers brushed lightly against a nipple and Silver jerked, throwing his head back to reveal the long line of his throat. Flint mouthed at it, sucking at the skin over his adam's apple and nosing his way over the rough stubble of his beard to the sensitive skin behind his ear. 

He bit down. 

Silver hissed and flinched away. He grabbed Flint's jaw with both hands and kissed him hard, mouth open, tongue slick as it glided against his own. His hips hitched against Flint's in small, short jerks, and heat pooled low in his belly at the feel of Silver's hard cock pressed against him. 

Flint yanked the rest of Silver's shirt up and reached between them. He hesitated, hand on the fastenings, and put just enough space between them that he could catch Silver's gaze, eyebrows raised in question. 

" _God_ _yes_ ," Silver gasped.

Flint quickly undid the fastenings and slipped his hand inside. Silver's eyelids fell closed as Flint wrapped his hand around him. He made short, little gasps as Flint moved his hand, the exhales skating across Flint's lips and chin. There was little space between them, and even less room to maneuver on the narrow chair they were sitting on, so Flint wrapped his arm around Silver's lower back, supporting his weight and encouraging him to rock his hips. 

Flint watched Silver's face as he thrust into the warmth of Flint's fist, eyes drawn to his mouth. For once it wasn't curled up into a smirk or an ingratiating smile, wasn't twisted into a scowl or a worried frown. It was soft and open as he panted into the few inches between their faces. Flint felt the urge to trace the outline of that mouth with his fingers, to press his thumb to the swell of his bottom lip. 

Then Silver opened his eyes, and his gaze was caught by them instead. The look in Silver's eyes was pure, raw need and Flint looked away, feeling flayed open and on display, like if he were to acknowledge the desperation in that gaze Flint would have to admit his own. So he turned his attention to the bare skin revealed by Silver's gaping shirt and bit at the line of his collarbone.

Silver hissed again, but this time he leaned up into Flint's mouth. His nails dug into Flint's shoulders and his thrusts went wild. Flint nibbled at the skin there and then sucked on it as he skated his palm against the tip of Silver's cock, gathering the slick there and spreading it down his shaft. His hand circled him again, tighter, and his other hand slipped from his lower back to grip one ass cheek, encouraging him to thrust harder, faster, heedless of the creaking protest from the chair below them. 

Silver's breath puffed against his ear and every thrust of his hips dragged his thigh over Flint's cock, hard and heavy in his trousers. The friction felt so good, and it had been so long since he'd been touched by anyone that he thought wildly that the could come just like this: Silver rocking on top of him, the taste of salt on his tongue as he mouthed up his neck, his nose buried in the mess of his curls. But he dragged his teeth along the skin of Silver's neck and Silver stiffened, breath changing to gasps in Flint's ear as he came. 

Silver slumped against him and for a brief moment Flint felt a flash of disappointment in his chest, but then Silver was back up, brushing Flint's hand aside and scooting back on his thighs, hands scrabbling at the opening of Flint's trousers. 

"God, you're still wearing a belt," he muttered. 

Flint looked up from Silver's hands, a dry comment on his tongue when something over Silver's shoulder caught his eye. He turned his head and the words died in his throat, mouth suddenly dry. 

Miranda was standing in front of the windows. Her skin was as pale as it had been in the coffin in Charles Town, but blood still ran freely from the bullet hole in her forehead. Her eyes, expressionless, were locked on Flint and Silver.

_Should we invite him to our bed?_

"Stop," Flint croaked. 

"What?" Silver muttered, distracted. His hands were still working on undoing Flint's belt. "Let me just—"

Flint grabbed his wrist in a rough grip. The vision of Miranda was gone, had only been there for a second, but he tightened his hand on Silver's, stilling its motion.

"I need you to get out." The words that slowly came out of his mouth felt dull, as if he were working his own body from a distance. 

Silver froze on top of him, mouth gaping. "What?" He said again, confused. 

"I need you to get out," Flint repeated. _"Now."_

Confusion morphed quickly into anger, and Silver practically threw himself off of Flint, stumbling a little as he tried to catch his balance with the iron boot. Flint didn't watch him as he stomped his way out of the cabin, didn't turn his head when the door was slammed shut. 

The sunlight through the windows had dimmed as afternoon changed to evening by the time Flint stood from the chair. His palms ached and he looked down at his hands, at the dark crescent-shaped indents on his palm. He must have been clenching his fists, though he had no memory of it. On the desk, still half full, were the two whiskey glasses. Flint stared at them, not moving. 

Then he snatched one off the desk and threw it at the wall.

It shattered with a crash and soon the second one followed. He stopped himself before he threw the bottle too, hand clenched around the neck. A dark stain was spreading down the wall from the whiskey, and he felt no satisfaction at the destruction. He stared at the broken shards on the floor and felt nothing but a deep, and hollow ache.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Death walked on the deck of the _Walrus_. 

The wood planks did not creak from the weight of its steps, it cast no shadow, made no sound, but it was there, lingering, on the edge of Flint’s vision. The sweltering heat had pushed him to the decks above, just like it did the rest of the men. They sprawled out on the wood—in the shade if they could find it, as far away from each other and their body heat if they could not. 

Miranda stayed among them. She appeared as a vision, climbing over the side, water dripping from her clothes, or as her laugh, soft and low, echoing in his ears. 

Or in the face of a man he was about to shoot, asking for forgiveness.

And always, where she was, Death was not far, its dark presence inarguable as it reached out and caressed the hollowed cheeks of his men.

Maybe this was hell, Flint thought. Maybe he wasn’t going mad at all but was simply dead already. It wasn’t a stretch—he already knew he was damned. It seemed like hell: the unrelenting heat of the sun, the gaping, cracked mouths of the crew as they gasped for air, their red-rimmed eyes, their skeletal forms as their body consumed their own flesh to sustain itself.

He must have damned them all, dragging them into that storm. 

Silver stepped out from below deck, hands grasping the rope as he pulled himself up the last step. Dark circles ringed his eyes and his mouth, like all the men, was cracked and crusted over with blood. Behind him, Death followed, just a few steps away.

Flint tilted his head back against the crate he was leaning against and closed his eyes.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“It hasn’t moved since we spotted it so it’s almost certainly dead.” Billy’s voice held more energy than it had in days, but when Flint held the glass up to peer at the floating carcass of the whale, he could only confirm what De Groot had already surmised. 

It was rotten.

That would not deter Silver. The launch was made ready by his command, and Flint did not have the energy to argue what a waste it would be to row all the way out to the rotting corpse just to confirm what they already knew. He also did not have the energy to argue when Silver took the seat at the front, forcing Flint to sit with his back to him. 

For a while, there was nothing but the rhythm of the rowing. Nothing but the exhaustion that shook his muscles, the heat of the sun on his scalp, the harsh, gasping breaths in his chest and coming from behind him as Silver, too, struggled with the oars. 

Then Silver spoke. 

“I stole it from you.”

The words held no meaning, were nonsense to Flint’s tired mind. “What?”

“The _Urca_ gold.” 

Flint's hands stilled. 

“I told you we were deceived about its having been recovered by the Spanish,” Silver continued. He had stopped rowing as well. “Wasn’t entirely true. You were deceived. I built the lie.”

Anger built in Flint's chest as Silver kept talking, explaining how he had arranged the sale of the _Urca_ information to Rackham and it spread through his veins, burning away the haze that had clouded his mind. 

“You thought you could change the terms of our deal with no consequences,” Silver continued. “So I ensured I got my end of it. Had you succeeded in securing the pardons in Charles Town, there would not have been peace waiting for Nassau. The Spanish gold England would have found in that fort would have torn your deal apart, leading to the war you originally planned for. Years of it, most likely.”

“Years you would have stayed out of the sea,” Flint added. He did not need to look over his shoulder for confirmation. 

“You’ve made a mistake. You’ve gotten too comfortable with our arrangement and have started to underestimate me.” Matching anger to Flint’s was in Silver’s tone, and Flint suddenly thought of that surprised, furious look on his face when Flint abruptly told him to leave his cabin a week ago.

“Some of the crew may be weaker than you, some of them may be less smart, but don’t you for a second believe I fit that description.” Silver took a deep breath. “Whatever happens out here, one thing is certain: you will account for _me._ ”

The sea rocked the launch with the same infuriatingly gentle waves that cradled the _Walrus_ not far away. He knew the men were watching them and trying to figure out why they had stopped. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So you can decide: to break our contract and fight me, maybe even kill me and try to haul this launch back alone, or acknowledge that you and I would be a hell of a lot better off as partners than as rivals.”

The anger that pumped in his veins faded, burned away like lamp oil, but the haze did not return. 

Partners. 

He thought of Miranda, the confident way she had claimed that title, knowing it was what she should have been all along, thought of her still and pale and on display in that coffin for the people of Charles Town's vicious pleasure. He thought of Gates' body slumped in his arms. He thought of Thomas.

He could hear Silver shuffling behind him and when he glanced over his shoulder he saw Silver reaching for the spear, waiting for Flint’s decision, prepared to fight. Everything Silver did, every plan, every manipulation, has proven one thing about him: Silver was a survivor. Maybe not before—before he became the creature that was sent to kill him—but everything he had done since Flint had met him was clearly in an attempt to scrape back some of the life he had lost. He wasn’t going to give that up easily, whatever Flint decided. 

_Everybody needs a partner._

Flint picked up his oars.

After a brief, tense moment, Silver did the same. 

Flint didn't have to turn around in the launch to know that they had reached the whale. The smell of it assaulted his nose, making him gag and spit.

"Oh, God. Oh, that stinks," Flint groaned. The tip of the boat bumped against the whale's splayed fin. "We can't eat that. Come on, let's go back to the ship." 

Silver made no move to take up the oars again. He was leaning over the side, peering down into the water. A smile, slow and satisfied, was growing on his face. 

"Silver?" Flint prompted. 

Without answering, Silver threw himself back on the bench. He braced himself against it with his arms and raised his right foot, slamming it twice in rapid succession on the bottom of the boat. 

_Thump thump._

A few seconds later there was an answering bump from beneath them. Flint peered over the side to see a shiver of sharks below them, swimming up from their feast of rotten flesh to circle the launch. 

When Flint looked up at Silver there was a wild light in his eyes and the sharp, predatory smile on his face was one Flint hadn't seen since before Charles Town. "We can eat those." 

  
  


* * *

  
  


It was with the taste of blood in his mouth that Flint finally felt the brush of wind against his face again. Around him, the crew was coming to life, leaping from their exhausted sprawl to their posts, responding to the orders De Groot was already shouting out with a fierce and desperate joy. Like lungs expanding, air filled the sails at last and the _Walrus_ began to move forward. 

Flint made his way to the stern. He grabbed the railing with blood-stained hands and closed his eyes, tilting his face into the wind. He took a slow, deep breath, letting the cool air fill his chest. 

When he opened his eyes he wasn't alone. Silver had followed him and was standing a few feet off to the side, watching him. Flint turned to face him and Silver's gaze went up, lingering on the swollen sails, the energized crew, the ropes that swayed, caught by the breeze. 

When his gaze returned to Flint, his eyes were wary. "What are you?" 

Flint didn't answer. He was tired. It was more than physical exhaustion that weighed down his limbs and clouded his mind and for the first time in he didn't know how long, he wanted to sleep. 

He brushed by Silver, nodded at De Groot as he passed him on his way to the stairs, and descended to his cabin below. 

When he slept, he dreamed that he and Miranda were on a small boat. Her skin was warm with life and her hair was pulled back into the simple, elegant knot at the nape of her neck he had known her to wear during their life together in New Providence. 

He breathed her name and she turned to him with a gentle smile. 

  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Graves's body was dragged down the steps, through the dirt, and tossed onto the growing pile, discarded. 

They watched in silence as the maroon queen stepped out of the hut, following behind her men. Flint could make out no discernable expression on her face from this distance, but her shoulders were straight, unbowed by guilt. 

On the other side of their cage, Billy was questioning Gunn, pressing him for information on the guards, the perimeter, the shift changes. His voice was low and urgent as he questioned him again and again, searching through the answers to find a shred of hope, a beginning of a plan to escape. 

They hadn't been ashore on this island an hour before the maroons had surrounded them, and when they showed up they left no opportunity for escape, no way to go but to the water at their back. They must have seen the _Walrus_ coming but waited until his men had let their guard down—strewn across the sand and gulping as much water as they could stomach—before revealing themselves. They were disciplined. They were strategic. 

Beside him, Silver leaned heavily against the bars, peering through the cage to the village below them. Trying to catch a glimpse of the princess, Flint supposed. But he didn't look away from the queen as she took steady, measured steps toward them. Like all three before, she took the time to approve which man her guard chose to interrogate, and this close, Flint could tell though there was no pleasure in her expression, there was also no indecision. 

Simon struggled as they dragged him to the hut. Some of the men shouted, pressing their chests against the bars, others watched quietly, doom settling heavily on their shoulders. Flint took in the measured gait of the queen as she followed behind her men, and turned away. 

The oppressive fog that had enveloped his thoughts in the doldrums was gone. It was with a clear mind that Flint knew, without a doubt, that they would not leave this island alive.

* * *

They stopped interrogating men after Simon and had dragged the bodies out of sight—to be buried or to be left in the jungle to rot, there was no way to know. The queen did not bother to say anything more to them, nor did any of the guards, and they were left to stand restlessly in their cages, waiting for the next move. 

Eventually, the toll weeks of no food or water took on everyone beat out their attempts to stay alert, and one by one the crew of the Walrus dropped into what sleep they could get, huddled on the floor or against the bars of their prison. 

Exhaustion weighed heavily on Flint's bones, but he didn't sleep. He sat in the corner, back against the rough bars, and listened to the breaths of the crew, the soft shuffling as one of them tried to get more comfortable, the cough another made in their sleep. Beyond that Flint could hear noises from the jungle surrounding the village: the sounds of insects, the wind through the trees. What he could not hear was the sea that surrounded this island, whose fickle favor had led them here to begin with. 

"Why didn't you leave?" The words were just a hair above a whisper, but Silver, who had been staring out at the village from his seat beside Flint, turned to look at him. 

"Leave?" he repeated, voice equally as soft. 

"When we were in the doldrums, starving to death," Flint clarified. The thought had plagued him on the ship, and every morning he woke up he fully expected that day to be the one Silver finally disappeared. "Why didn't you leave? Return to where you had come from, even if your task was incomplete. Are the consequences for failing so great that you would risk dying in such a way rather than face them?" A thought occurred to him. " _Can_ you die?" 

He had assumed Silver was mortal, especially after the loss of his leg, but now Flint reconsidered. Silver had told him he died, drowned in the sea. Can the dead die again, even if they walk the earth in another form?

At his words, Silver looked anxiously over his shoulder at the crew, but the men slept on, undisturbed by the sound of their voices. He gripped one of the bars and used it to swing himself around, so he was sitting as Flint did, with his back against the wood, his shoulder less than a handbreadth away from Flint's. 

" _Yes_ ," Silver hissed, leaning into Flint's space so he could be heard. "I can die. And the consequences…" even in the dark Flint could make out the grimace that twisted Silver's face as he sucked in a breath. "Well, let's just say they would be severe." 

Flint was quiet for a moment, studying Silver. What little moonlight that made it into their prison only served to strip Silver of his humanity. His cheekbones were too prominent on his face, and the shadows under his eyes made them look sunken. The cracks in his lips looked like trails of dried blood. More than any of the crew, the last few weeks of starvation transformed Silver into some kind of ghoul, and yet sitting this close, Flint felt no trace of the fear that once crept through his veins whenever Silver was near. Instead, his mind lingered on the memory of how the angle of that cheekbone once pressed against his as Silver panted, breathless, against his ear. 

"You must have considered it," he told Silver in a low voice. "Breaking our contact. Finishing what you came here to do, leaving the ship with your life intact and no consequences awaiting you. Don't tell me you didn't." 

There was no expression on Silver's face as he studied Flint in return. When he spoke, his voice was low, his words measured. "I considered it." 

Flint nodded. He leaned his head back against the wood bar, eyes closing. He felt no anger at the admission, no betrayal. A moment of desperation did not change their circumstances, or what they were to one another. Still, the question needed to be asked. "Are you still considering it?" 

There was no answer from Silver. Flint took a breath, ready to break the silence between them when he heard it: a quiet creak from behind them. His eyes snapped open. 

Silver was leaning back as far as he could against the wood bars, craning his neck away from the knife the maroon guard had placed against his throat.

"Up," a quiet voice commanded. 

Without a conscious thought, Flint's hand shot out to grip the man's wrist. He curled his other around the edge of his palm, fingers stilling the knife as Flint managed to wrench the man's arm a few inches from Silver's neck. 

Another man reached through the bars to roughly grab Flint's shoulder, jerking him back against the bars. He felt the cool touch of metal as a blade was pressed against his throat as well. 

"Let him go," the guard demanded from behind Flint. 

He looked at Silver, who caught his gaze over the man's arm with wide, serious eyes. Silver took a breath and tilted his head down in the barest of nods. 

With reluctance, Flint released his grip. 

The hand immediately withdrew back through the bars. 

"Get up," the man told Silver again. 

The other guard kept the knife at Flint's throat as Silver pulled himself off the floor and made his way to the door of their cage. It was only once Silver was on the other side, door latched once more, that he released Flint and withdrew. 

They led Silver away. Flint listened uneasily to the sound of their footsteps as it faded. What did the queen want with Silver at this time of night? Surely not to torture to death like the other men. As the elected voice of the crew, he would be of more value to her as a means of controlling them than as just another body to add to the pile. Then again, it was not hard to discern the crew's regard for Silver. Perhaps she meant to break their spirits with his death. But why wait until everyone was asleep? Why not make a show of it? 

It was these last questions that lingered in Flint's mind as he stayed awake, anxiously listening for the sound of returning footsteps. 

He heard their sound after an hour, maybe less. Flint did not relax until he could make out Silver's distinctive gait coming up the steps. Several of the men were awake now, the scuffle from when Silver was taken having roused them, but Silver ignored their curious eyes and questions and walked straight back to Flint, using the bars of the cage to lower himself down beside him with a weary sigh. 

Other than the exhaustion that plagued them all, he looked no worse for wear. 

"What did she want," Flint asked him, "the queen?" 

Silver tilted his head back against the cage, brow furrowed. "It wasn't the queen," he murmured. "It was the princess." 

The princess. Flint had seen her off and on throughout the day, lingering on the outside of events, her gaze solemn as she watched them. She carried herself like her mother, and it was clear the whole village respected her just as much. Silver watched her with intent eyes whenever she was in sight. Months ago, Flint would have called his gaze predatory, like an animal studying prey. He would have assumed it was only the opportunity Silver saw to use his particular talent on her and talk his way to freedom that drew his attention. 

Now, Flint knew it was more than that. The girl had caught his interest somehow. It was made clear every time she appeared: Silver's eyes were drawn to her as if the action was beyond his control.

Now it seemed she had also taken notice of Silver. 

"What did she want?" Flint asked. If she waited until the cover of nightfall to take Silver from the cage then it must have been without the queen's consent.

"She asked me why the men refused the pardon." 

Which would have created the perfect opportunity for Silver to work on her. Flint leaned in closer, lowering his voice. "And were you able to...influence her?"

Silver shook his head, eyes focused on something beyond the bars of their prison. "No," he said softly. "No, it didn't work on her."

He didn't sound disappointed. 

* * *

_Whether discommended or commended thou do thy duty: or whether dying or doing somewhat else; for that also "to die," must among the rest be reckoned as one of the duties and actions of our lives._

Flint ran his thumb along the edge of the small blade. _Meditations_ was with the rest of his books on the _Walrus_ , assuming the ship hadn't already been ransacked for supplies. But Flint did not need to look upon the words on the page to hear them in Thomas's clear voice.

_To die must among the rest be reckoned as one of the duties and actions of our lives._

His mind lingered not on the reveal of Mr. Scott as the maroon king, but on the news he had brought back from Nassau. An island full of pirates laying down their arms and signing their names for a pardon, English citizens once again. With the exception of a few—Teach and Vane among them—it had gone exactly as the plan had proposed. His plan. Miranda's plan.

Thomas's plan. 

If it was the dread of Captain Flint and his war on those who would hang pirates that finally pushed England to such measures, perhaps he had served his purpose after all. Now, the only thing left was to see to the safety of the men who followed him and let the name Flint and the man who went by it disappear from the world altogether. 

_...one of the duties and actions of our lives._

He ran his thumb over the blade again. 

Silver lowered himself down beside Flint with a sigh. He stretched out his legs, hands automatically reaching for his left thigh in an attempt to soothe the ache he must have felt. He'd been wearing the iron boot non-stop since they were taken, unwilling to remove it even during the dull hours they passed confined in the cage.

"I've been thinking about our agreement."

Flint looked up from where he had been watching Silver's hands dig roughly into muscles of his leg. A muscle ticked below Silver's eye as he rubbed at what must have been a particularly tender spot.

"What about it?" He didn't care much for conversation right now, wanted nothing more than to sit here in silence, occupied only by his own thoughts as he waited out what could be the last few hours of his life, but there was no denying Silver when he was determined.

Silver didn't look up as he spoke. "If you are successful with your plan for the maroon queen, I will be released from here, able to return to the sea with a job well done, no consequences awaiting me." His tone was even as he told Flint this. Thoughtful. Like he was only now putting it together. "It's less than ideal, but it's going to happen at some point anyway."

"Yes..." Flint drew out the word, letting it longer between them. He knew Silver, knew the way he thought, and he was clearly leading up to something. 

Silver finally looked up from his ministrations, eyes sharp. "Billy doesn't give a shit if you die tomorrow." 

Flint tilted his head slightly, acknowledging the words. "Yes, it appears you haven't made much progress in that regard." 

Silver snorted. "You know," he continued, "the strange thing is...I should be with Billy. As loathe as I am to return to it, the sea is a far better fate than what awaits for me here. I should be unbothered by the idea of trading your life for the rest of the crew. And yet," Silver's brow creased, "for some reason...I am bothered by it."

Surprise flickered through Flint. It was the closest either one of them had ever come to acknowledging this thing between them, that there was something other than a mutually beneficial contract drawing them to one another. 

"But I understand it," Silver continued, and the compassion Flint could hear in his voice was entirely different than the slick, persuasive tone he was so used to hearing from Silver as he talked people into his point of view. "I understand the allure of ensuring that no one will ever think you the villain you fear you are."

Silver's hand shot out, curling around the top of Flint's thigh. Flint sucked in a breath at the sharp pinpricks of pain that dotted along his skin as Silver's nails, sharper than they should be, dug into the flesh of his leg.

"But it's a waste," Silver hissed. "I have watched you convince men into many things, crazy things. Into acting against their own interest. You have a way of willing your desires into reality through sheer manipulation." Silver breathed a huff, almost a laugh. Admiration was openly displayed in his expression and his voice held a note of awe as he continued. "You have succeeded where I have failed. You have even managed to convince me." 

He caught Flint's gaze with a serious look. "That shouldn't be possible," he murmured. "But the man who can convince me to give a shit about this crew can talk these people into anything. If he wanted to." 

Silver looked away, taking a breath and releasing it in a slow exhale. His hand let go of Flint's thigh. 

"Our contract is not finished," he intoned. "Keep that in mind." 

Silver did not look back at Flint as he grabbed a hold of one of the bars and heaved himself up. Flint watched as he took uneasy, laborious steps across the cage, sitting back down next to Billy, but ignoring the man's curious glances. 

Flint pressed the heel of his hand into his thigh, feeling the remnants of pain where Silver's nails had dug into him. A few hours later, two guards appeared at the door of the cage, ready to escort him to the meeting with the queen. He walked out with the silent, expectant gaze of the crew on his back, and with every step he took, he could feel the echo of that pain in his leg. 

He left the blade behind. 

* * *

Flint found Silver overseeing the loading of supplies. Now that they were allies, the maroon queen had been generous in her help, ensuring Flint's crew had everything they needed for the voyage to find Vane. Thankfully, Flint had an idea of where to find him. Vane had more than likely followed Teach, and there was one island the infamous Blackbeard could often be found. It was to that island they were bound first. If fortune favored them they would find Teach on Ocracoke, and Vane with him, resulting in a short journey. 

Even a short journey would be too long for Silver. 

Silver still wore the boot, and hadn't, to the best of Flint's knowledge, even removed it to check on the wound. He hadn't gone so far as to attempt to load the supplies himself, but he had remained standing as long the crew worked. He was standing next to one of the boats Dobbs was loading casks of beer into now, carrying what would appear to be an easy conversation with the man as he lightly balanced himself with one hand on the wood. 

Flint could see he was pale beneath his tan, however, and when the boat was full and Silver stepped away he wavered slightly, jaw clenching as his bad leg took his weight. 

Flint took a deep breath through his nose and steeled himself for the upcoming fight. 

Silver shot him a glance in acknowledgment when Flint stepped up to his side. "We're making good time. We'll be underway before nightfall." 

Flint watched as one of the maroons rowed the boat across the lake. "We'll be underway," he agreed "but you won't be." 

At that, Silver turned to face him, anger already building on his face. "You're not leaving me behind." 

"Billy can take over most of your duties," Flint reasoned. "He's done it before." 

"Yes, because giving my job to the man who was happy to see you die two days ago is a wonderful idea." 

Flint resisted the urge to reach up and pinch the bridge of his nose to ease the headache building behind his eyes. Two days of food and water could not completely erase the strain that weeks of starvation and dehydration had done to their bodies, which was why he had to insist on this. "Need I remind you that the role of quartermaster is not to support the captain of the ship, but the crew? Billy will do just fine for a few days. Even he is unlikely to risk the alliance we have made here with a mutiny." 

Silver scowled at him, unconvinced. "And what of the _other_ role I play?" he asked in a low voice, stepping closer so Flint could hear. "Is _Billy_ going to talk Vane and the men who follow him into fighting your war?"

"It's because of your other role that I need you here," Flint told him. "This alliance is tenuous, at best. I need you to stay here and work on the Queen, bring her more firmly on our side. And if not her, then the daughter. By remaining behind you will have the time you need to let your influence build." 

At the mention of Madi Silver's scowl softened into something more thoughtful. Still, he pressed, "And Vane?" 

"Leave Vane to me. I succeed where you fail, remember?" 

Silver didn't seem to appreciate the use of his own words against him, lips thinning. "Fine," he conceded roughly. "I will remain behind to shore up the alliance. This time." 

Flint nodded his head. Silver started to walk away and Flint was tempted to leave it there, to let the convenient fiction they had just built remain between them, an easy way to end the conversation. He knew, however, that Silver would use the pretense as an excuse not to take care of himself if doing so would make him appear weak. 

"Mr. Silver," he called out and when Silver stopped a few feet away Flint was quick to close the gap between them. "When I return I expect you to be recovered." He shot a pointed glance at Silver's leg so there could be no misunderstanding. "Do whatever is necessary." 

Silver opened his mouth to reply, real anger in his expression now, when Flint cut him off. "You reminded me that our contract is not yet complete. Just as I cannot break it by becoming a martyr, you cannot break it by neglecting yourself." He lowered his voice, aware that the bulk of the crew was just a few paces away. "You said you wanted to be partners, so be a partner I can rely on. Make yourself well again." 

It was the first time Flint had acknowledged Silver's words from the launch and it made Silver pause, mouth closing on whatever argument he had ready. His expression didn't change the angry, mulish one Flint's command had brought to his face, but he nodded his head in ascent—a single, sharp jerk of the head—before he turned away. 

Flint watched him walk away for a moment, frustration beating in his veins when he noticed how little Silver allowed himself to favor his left leg. He'd done what he could for Silver. Short of ordering Howell to remain on the island with him—which neither man would agree to—there was nothing else but to trust Silver would take his words to heart and rest. 

Flint turned away, forcing Silver from his mind. 

* * *

Silver turned out to be harder to put from his mind once Flint was aboard the _Walrus_. His absence was felt on the ship—by everyone. Without the daily announcements, mealtimes became a subdued affair, few words spoken among the men as they devoured their food. There were no rhythmic words echoing his own, no caustic comments when Flint went over the plan and sea charts with De Groot. 

Billy almost proved to be as difficult to work with as Silver predicted. While not quite inciting a mutiny, Billy never hesitated to question any order he did not immediately agree with. When he was not questioning those orders he was staring at Flint with a heavy gaze, as if trying to gauge the motive behind Flint's every word.

It was more than Billy or the men, however, that kept Silver in his thoughts. 

Flint was reclined in his bed, the gentle swinging aggravating the wounds he had received in the duel with Teach and keeping him awake. He could hear clearly in his mind what Silver would have said to that plan, the exasperation that would have taken over his features as he scolded Flint for attempting a fight to the death after weeks of no food or water. He wouldn't be able to hide the admiration in his voice though, when he realized that Flint had been counting on Vane, who even Teach could not break him from his own, twisted code, to intervene. Silver loved nothing more than a risk that paid off, and Flint could easily imagine the impressed look in his eyes when Flint left Teach's camp, Vane in tow. 

_Partners._

Flint considered the word again. He supposed someone could argue that they had been partners since the beginning of their contract, though Flint personally had considered it more of a treaty than anything—an armistice, agreed upon because it temporarily served both their interests. 

Now, he wondered if at one point _partner_ hadn't been the only term on offer. 

His eyes were drawn to the chair in front of his desk, recalling those few moments he had spent with Silver that first day in the doldrums. The knife-edge of his grief had dulled somewhat, and the memory was no longer accompanied by a wash of guilt and self-loathing. Instead, he remembered the press of Silver's thighs as they bracketed his, the sharp sting of his nails on the skin of his shoulder, the soft, low noise Silver made deep in his throat every time Flint ran his thumb along the underside of his cock. He remembered the soft shape of his mouth as he panted air against Flint's skin and the way it thinned, hurt and angry when Flint pushed him away. 

Flint's stomach clenched. 

He threw himself up off the bed, feet barely touching the floor before he was stalking across the room to the door. He needed a distraction. 

He wouldn't get any sleep anyway. 

* * *

Flint didn't see Silver on the island until he was in the queen's hut to give her a report. He was next to the princess, leaning against a wood pole for support, and Flint took one look at his face and had to bite back the immediate fury he felt rushing through his veins. 

Silver was just as pale as he had been the day Flint left, and now there were deep purple bruises under his eyes. A line of sweat marked the edges of his brow and his eyes when they looked up to meet Flint's in greeting were bloodshot and hazy. Flint clenched his jaw and looked away, forcing himself not to react. As he did the princess caught his eye, his own worry reflected back at him from her features. 

After the queen consented to his plan—with conditions, of course—Flint stalked out of the hut, intent on giving Silver a piece of his mind. 

He wasn't there. Instead, he found the princess, her expression just as concerned as before. 

"Where is he?" he growled. 

"He is resting," she nodded her head at one of the huts further down the row. She bit her lip. "We do not know what is wrong with him. We have tended to his wound and he should be recovering, but instead, he grows worse. We have tried to talk to him about this, to see if he knows the cause of his illness, but he refuses to even discuss it."

Flint exhaled through his nose, eyes on the rough roof of the hut she had pointed out to him. "I'll talk to him," he assured her. 

The princess—Madi—hesitated, looking as if she wanted to say more, then gave him a nod, and walked past him back into her mother's hut. 

Silver was sitting on the cot in his hut with his back to the door when Flint entered. 

"I thought I told you to make yourself well," Flint said by way of greeting. He grabbed the single chair against the wall and dragged it over to the cot. 

Silver's gaze, as he watched Flint take a seat in front of him, was hazy, his lids heavy over his eyes. "Well," he rasped, "my leg is better at least."

"Doesn't seem that way to me. You're feverish," Flint snapped. 

Silver shook his head. "Not the leg," he insisted. 

"Then what is it?" He tried to remind himself to be patient, but he really wanted to grab Silver by the shoulders and shake him. What was the point of leaving him behind if he only continued to neglect himself when apart from the crew? 

"It's...well, it's the sea."

"The sea," Flint repeated flatly.

Silver leaned back on his hands, closing his eyes wearily. "I've been apart from it too long. I'm too far away," he murmured. 

Flint thought of that night on the deck of the _Walrus_ , of two hands appearing on the railing as Silver dragged himself over the side of it, drenched in seawater. He had seemed otherworldly, then, with his sharp teeth and skin glittering like scales in the dim light of the moon. Dangerous and unnatural, like something from a fever dream. 

Now, he had never looked more mortal. He was still too thin; in the gape of his shirt, Flint could see the outline of his breastbone, the too deep shadows below his clavicle. His skin was flushed high on his cheeks and when Silver reached up a hand to wipe at the sweat on his brow there was a fine tremor in his fingers.

"The sea has this much of a hold on you?" 

When Silver smiled it was with a bitter twist to his lips. "I am its creature." 

Flint had no reply to that. No words he could say would ease the bitterness Silver felt about his existence. Instead, he focused on the problem at hand. "You weren't sick on the _Walrus_ , will you recover once you're back on board?" 

A grimace flickered across Silver's face as he shifted on the cot. "It will help, being in such close proximity, but actually going into the water is best." 

"In case you didn't notice," Flint said dryly, "you are on an island." 

"I know that," Silver snapped. It was the first emotion other than exhaustion he'd displayed since Flint walked in. "It's half a day's walk from here. I barely made it to this village with your help, how the hell do you think I could make it to the water on my own like this?" He gestured at himself with one hand. "Should I have risked the alliance by asking someone here for help? How would I explain it? How long do you think it would take the queen to rescind her support once she found out what I am?" 

Flint thought of the worried look in Madi's eyes when she glanced at Silver during the meeting, the way her brow furrowed in concern as she told Flint of Silver's condition. He wasn't sure how Madi would react to Silver's nature, but it was clear that whatever happened between them while he was gone had altered the indifference she held toward him. Still, Flint silently agreed, it wasn't worth the risk. 

"Alright." Flint slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up. 

"Alright?" Silver repeated, bewildered. 

He dragged the chair back to its spot on the wall. "I'll have them bring you food and water and you will consume both." He gave the words as a command, leaving no room for argument. "Your only task for the rest of the day is to rest." 

Silver opened his mouth, a stubborn look on his face no doubt matching the argument he was going to make anyway, but Flint cut him off. 

"Your only task. No exceptions. I'll return after nightfall when everyone has gone to sleep. And for fuck's sake," he snapped as he walked to the door, "take that boot off your leg."

Madi was curious when he approached her with his questions, but she seemed to accept his assertion that he was unable to explain why, giving him the information he needed with only mild confusion in her features. 

When the village quieted, settling down in their huts and tents for the night, Flint grabbed the canister of water he'd filled and the sturdy stick he'd gone into the jungle to find and walked over to Silver's hut. Silver was awake when he entered, lying supine on the cot. He looked no better than when Flint left him.

"Finally," Silver muttered when he saw Flint. He slowly pushed up into a sitting position. "I've been going crazy just lying here." 

Flint grabbed the iron boot at the foot of the bed and handed it to Silver. "Put it on." When Silver had finished with the straps Flint held out the stick. 

Silver eyed it, a thoroughly unimpressed look on his face. "I could have asked for a walking stick on my own if that was the only thing stopping me." 

"It's just until we get out of the village," Flint assured him.

Silver still didn't look convinced, but he took it from Flint anyway, using it as leverage to pull himself off the bed. He swayed once he was upright, and Flint reached out one hand to steady him. Silver took a deep, fortifying breath and then used the stick to help him walk to the door. 

Once they had left the privacy of the hut Silver immediately straightened his shoulders, putting less of his weight on the stick and more on the metal boot. Flint clenched his jaw, but said nothing, walking close enough that he could reach out and steady him if needed.

The guards at the edge of the village let them go with barely a curious glance, Madi having done what he asked and instructed them to let them leave unquestioned. Silver raised his eyebrows as they passed them, but Flint just shrugged in reply, leading Silver away from the village. 

Once they were out of sight of the guards Flint stopped. Silver immediately followed suit, grasping the walking stick with both hands, shoulders heaving as he took in deep, labored breaths. 

"Here," Flint held out the water. 

Silver took it without comment. His hand shook as he lifted the canister to his lips. Flint watched him gulp down the water, worry gnawing at him. This was going to be a more difficult journey than he had thought. 

"Perhaps I should have talked to Howell. He could have given you something for the pain."

Silver pulled the canister from his lips with a gasp. "Wouldn't have helped," he rasped out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Not for this." 

He nodded, taking Silver at his word. He took the canister from him, attached it to his belt, and then grabbed Silver's left arm, ducking down so he could pull it behind his neck. He tucked his right shoulder under Silver's left, right hand going around his waist to steady him. "Use the stick on your other side," he instructed him. 

Silver did as he was told, his left hand gripping Flint's shoulder for support, and it was the lack of argument more than anything else that told Flint the true state he was in. How long could he have gone on like this? If Vane hadn't been so easily found, would he have come back to a fresh grave instead of a quartermaster? His stomach churned at the thought. 

Slowly—so slowly—they walked on.

"This isn't the way to the beach," Silver huffed. 

"There is a closer one less than an hour's walk from here, below the cliffs," Flint explained. 

Silver grunted. "Cliffs—" he paused to suck in a breath, "—might be difficult."

"We'll manage."

The trek reminded Flint of the long walk to the maroon camp when they were captured. Only this time it wasn't just Silver's hand on his shoulder for balance. They were pressed so close together Flint could feel every ragged exhale Silver made against his own ribs. The slow, jerking steps Silver took rocked his hip further into Flint's side, and when Silver stumbled on the sand Flint caught him with a hand on his chest, his mind abruptly reminded of the smooth skin beneath his shirt that his palms had traced not too long ago. 

"So you managed to talk Vane into joining us without me after all," Silver said after several minutes of silence. 

"Hm." Flint squinted at the ground, trying to pick out a clear path in the dim light. 

"But not the fleet." 

"Don't start," Flint warned.

"Don't start what? Pointing out that had I been with you we may have a formidable fleet of ships—including the warship you and I took great pains to steal—to help you win this war of yours?" 

They had reached the base of the hills leading to the cliffs, and Flint guided Silver to the left where he had found a narrow path to the beach below them hours earlier. "You are clearly in no condition to convince anyone of anything," he argued. 

"I wouldn't be in this condition if I had gone with you." Silver's hand tightened on Flint's shoulder as they began their descent.

Flint snorted. "No, you'd be much worse. Unless you are telling me that a midnight swim can also cure you of blood poisoning."

Silver said nothing, eyes trained on the ground as he carefully prodded it with the stick to make sure it would hold his weight. 

That's what he thought. 

Conversation between them died as the ground became steeper, limited only to such phrases as "easy" or "step here," as they carefully made their way to the bottom of the cliffs. It was slow going: sand and small stones tumbled down the path at their every step and more than once they had to suddenly reach out and grab the other, stopping a fall. 

They were both panting when they reached the bottom, but it was just a few more yards through the trees and they were there. 

They were standing on the end of a small beach, nestled in a cove beneath the cliffs. Sharp, jagged rocks jutted out from the water, curving inward on both sides and leaving only an opening to the sea big enough for a small rowboat to get through. The beach was hidden from view—someone would have to climb to the top of the precarious, rocky cliffs above them to look down into the cove. 

Silver didn't seem to see anything but the water. 

His gaze was locked on the glimpse of the sea beyond the jagged rocks that bordered the cove, its rippling water lit by the waxing moon, and the expression that transformed his features was terrible. Flint couldn't say if it was longing or terror that Silver felt, grief or exaltation, but it was clear he was as repulsed by the sea as much as he was drawn to it.

Silver's mouth parted in a gasping breath and he threw the stick aside, hands trembling as they reached for the hem of his shirt. "Help me," he muttered, voice ragged. 

Flint steadied him as Silver sank into the sand, his fingers making quick work of the straps on the iron boot. Once off it was tossed aside, along with his right boot and trousers. He was naked by the time he held out his hand for Flint to grab, and Flint bit his lip as Silver was once again pressed up against him, his palms skittering along the cool skin of his chest and waist as he tried to get purchase enough to balance Silver as they made their way to the water. 

Silver shuddered when the first wave rolled over his foot and Flint stopped, concerned. Silver shook his head at the unspoken question. "Keep going." 

They did. The water was cold against Flint's skin, still flushed from the hike down from the village, and it soaked through his clothes as he helped Silver further and further into the waves. When the water was up past their thighs the skin on Silver's hip grew rough underneath his palm. Spots of pain pricked at his shoulder as Silver's nails grew sharp, digging into his skin. 

As the water got deeper Flint had to brace himself against every wave. By the time it reached their waists the waves tumbled against his chest, pushing him back, threatening to pull him under. A particularly rough one crashed into his shoulders and up his neck and he heard Silver make a choked, sucking noise. When he looked over slits were forming in the skin of Silver's neck, opening and closing in the cool night air. Small, iridescent scales had appeared on his face, following the line of his cheekbones and up onto his brow and when he caught Flint's eyes with his own they were once again that unnatural, luminescent blue.

Silver parted his lips in a wild smile, his teeth dark and jagged. " _Now."_

He twisted in Flint's grasp. His rough skin tore into the flesh of Flint's palms, lacerating them, and Flint was forced to let go, cursing. Silver didn't look back at the sound. He dove headfirst into the upcoming wave, submerging himself completely. 

He didn't resurface. 

Flint stayed where he was, letting the waves beat at him as he waited, eyes scanning the water ahead. But Silver didn't reappear. No head of curly hair breached the water. 

Finally, he turned around and trudged back to the shore. 

He thought about the expression on Silver's face when he saw the water, remembered the careless tone he used all those months ago when he told Flint that he didn't care much for the sea. Flint knew it was more than that now. Silver loathed it. It was his jailor. His master as well as his savior. How terrible a fate must it be, to be owned so completely by a world that the only hope you had of leaving it would mean your death. 

Would that be his fate, too, once their contract was completed? Would he be released from his debt to the water by his death, or would it claim that too?

Flint wearily walked up the beach to dry sand. He turned back to the moonlit sea and sat down in the sand, cradling his bleeding hands in his lap. In front of him, the waves kept tumbling over one another, the sea pushing up onto the beach and dragging bits of the earth back into it, ever relentless. 

Flint closed his eyes and waited. 

He awoke to a hand grabbing his shoulder. Instinctively, he snatched at the wrist, only relaxing his grip when he heard the low chuckle coming from above him. He opened his eyes and squinted through the morning sunlight at Silver, who was lounging beside him on the sand, propped up on his elbows. 

"Sorry," Silver said with a laugh. "I would let you sleep, but the tide is coming in."

Slowly, Flint sat up, his muscles aching from the night sleeping on the sand. He rubbed roughly at his eyes before turning back to Silver, taking him in. The sky was a vivid mass of red and gold as the sun rose over the water, and the soft morning light lit up Silver’s features, which were human once again.

He looked better. His eyes were clear and bright, no longer heavy lidded and bloodshot. Gone was the unhealthy pallor, his skin back to the even, golden tan he had sported when Flint first met him. The tan was unbroken by any lines from his clothed, confirming Flint's suspicions that it wasn't a tan at all as he glanced down Silver's torso, gaze skittering away when he realized Silver was still naked. He looked instead at Silver's throat through the tangled mass of curls that hung freely to his shoulders, trying to discern any hint of the gills that appeared there last night. 

Silver's smile widened at his observation.

Flint turned away, hands groping at the sand on his other side. "How do you feel?"

"Less like I am dying, thanks to you."

"Good." Flint clenched his fist around the leg of Silver's trousers, still abandoned in the sand, and threw them at him. "Now get dressed." He stood up and brushed the sand from his clothes. "We have work to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a while, but my life got a little hectic over the last few weeks, and it is a longer than rest of the chapters. I have also changed the chapter count--this story is definitely going to be longer than I originally estimated.

**Author's Note:**

> [ Come say hi on my tumblr!](https://aisalynn.tumblr.com/)


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